Free Essay on Nurturing Gratitude: A Comprehensive Guide to Transformative Practices

Introduction

There is a Reiki mantra that states, “Living a life of gratitude is healing energy.” Gratitude is defined as a positive emotional response to giving or receiving a benefit from something or someone. For instance, how I feel when my dog is excited to see me come home. It’s about recognizing life’s good things. Neural mechanisms play a role in feeling gratitude. Grateful feelings are induced in the brain’s area recognizing moral judgments, the right anterior temporal cortex. Gratitude can have long-term effects through a powerful mind shift that can impact the body’s biochemistry and psychological conditions like depression, anxiety, and stress.

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Psychologically, practicing gratitude increases self-esteem, keeps depression and suicidal thoughts at bay, and enhances one’s positive emotions. Physically, practicing gratitude reduces blood pressure and depressive symptoms, improves sleep, and increases one’s frequency of exercise. Socially, gratitude makes individuals like us, improves friendships and romantic relationships, strengthens families in times of hardship, and enhances social support. Thus, the practice of gratitude is an effective tool in helping to rewire your brain and build the psychological skill set you need to master your life; mind, body, and spirit.

Gratitude does not take significant or valuable objects; people can train themselves always to be thankful for the little things they do in life. Once people learn to cultivate and create that feeling within themselves, then gratitude becomes an object, they can utilize to organize thought pathways in their brains actively. It is writing for us to build and strengthen the portions of our brain related to positive thinking (Graham and Linda 19).

Usually, there are several health benefits to expressing gratitude. All the scholars, scientists, and spiritual leaders since immemorial have deliberated on gratitude. Gratitude is more than just saying, “Thank you.” Various studies show how gratitude journaling can improve people’s happiness and decrease inflammation in individuals’ bodies (Graham and Linda 20). When people express gratitude in whatever they do, they have less stress, increased optimism, and changed their brains.

Generally, the body and brain benefit from gratitude in many ways; for instance, this virtue is characterized by the following; increased happiness and good moods, more satisfaction with life, better physical health, less fatigue, better sleep, more excellent resiliency, encourages the development of humility, wisdom, and patience, less materialistic (Graham and Linda 20). Similarly, an organization’s gratitude may increase job satisfaction, increase prosocial behaviors, strengthen relationships between the workers and the employer, and enable employees’ effectiveness.

Also, gratitude helps us disconnect from negative emotions, toxic as well as the ruminating that always accompanies them. Writing a letter to a friend changes attention so that an individual’s focus is on positive emotions. Expressing gratitude is suitable for a soul even if people do not share it with other people. After the expression, people feel happier and more satisfied with life since they completed the exercise. A gratitude process trains the brain and the body to be more in accord with experiencing gratitude, such as optimistic and cheerful, equal multiple positives (Graham and Linda 21). People may realize the benefit of a daily or weekly gratitude practice, but people feel the influence after several weeks and months.

Eleven Ways of Building Individuals’ Gratitude:

JOURNALING

Probably, journaling is the most general gratitude practice up to date. Putting down gratitude on paper is substantial, and it is effortless to remember to be thankful every day when it involves a physical object. The journaling process is straightforward, put down three things that make you grateful in the morning and another three things in the evening. Also, people’s mobile apps, for example, The Five Minute Journal, come with in-built prompts, though they are often the same. People can upgrade their practices by keeping their own journals as well as including their prompts or writing gratitude that comes to them (Dispenza 104).

PRACTICE MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is very simple; what people need to do is to slow their life down. If one finds him/herself hurrying to get to work or notices a frazzled condition, let it go away and relax (Vanda et al. 230). Being late for a few minutes will not have you killed. Any time one uses the stairs, he/she should pay attention to each step. Look at the flowers, trees, and plants growing using cracks in the pavement as they walk along the pavements. Literally, stop to sniff the roses. There is tremendous beauty in our surrounding environment, and the majority of us blow right by it on the journey to the next obligation or goal. Life is too short that one should not hesitate to appreciate the little achievements he/she made in life; always takes time, since nature never rushes, and yet everything gets done.

TRY STOICISM

When one buys a new car, the pleasure of owning the car fades gradually. Using a public van for a week instead of a private car, one will be thankful for the car on a whole new level. People should make a habit of living a simple life, at times. Some ways people can deprive themselves of pleasures they take for granted: Sleeping on the floor for a night, one will wake up grateful for his/her bed; Fasting on the water for 24 hours, one will feel grateful and appreciate the next big juicy steak he/she will eat; Making a walk to a far distance than you would like to go, instead of riding. The next time one rides to that place, he/she will be grateful and give much appreciation for the convenience. Probably, people have various pleasures and comforts in their lives that they do not appreciate. By imagining how life looks like without such comforts and pleasures, one will always be grateful and appreciate the pleasures.

RETHINK A NEGATIVE SITUATION

Often, people should find the silver lining in whatever thing we do. The silver lining is that hardship makes people learn something new, and become more resilient and more substantial human. People should never force themselves to feel a certain way if they are not ready. If someone is mourning a loss or encountered a trauma, it is good to feel what he/she needs to feel at a given time, even if the feeling is associated with negative emotions. Some conditions suck, but people should learn the habit of living positive no matter the situation. This exercise is compelling, and it falls among the 40 Years of Zen. In the practice of rethinking a negative situation, one needs to hoop his brain up to an EEG to see the change, that reframing negative conditions has on people’s physiology (Van der Kolk 1).

SPEND TIME IN NATURE

Bonus points if someone left his/her phone at home. Those people who are always overwhelmed with articles, advertisements, and social media platforms influencing their actions and feelings will not feel grateful without their phones at their place of work (Dispenza 105). Instead, they feel stressed and are gradually unable to make the right decisions. And with nerves taxed, it is elementary to slither into negative thought patterns. In case these gratitude processes seem tasteless, kindly get out in nature and adore the silence.

ACTIVE APPRECIATION

Always cultivate opportunities to be grateful and appreciative throughout the day. This is mainly helpful when having a bad experience or concentrating on negative emotions. It is not about being unrealistic or having a false imagination, but it is about looking at things in life that are worth appreciating (Kabat-Zin et al. 60). It should begin by being grateful for a cup of tea every morning or good health. People should also learn to appreciate money, whether incoming or outgoing, to change how people relate to money.

So often, people concentrate on outgoing money and not the benefit they get in return. The mental attribute around it and exercising active appreciation is much more important than the monetary value. It is not a must for people to make a tremendous amount of money, but they can still appreciate money even with the little money they may have.

MAKE A GRATITUDE JAR

A play on journaling is a more creative piece. Choose either a fishbowl or a big jar, and as a family or as an individual, note down gratitude for the day and pop it in the jar. As the jar fills, it symbolizes the things to be grateful for. There are various changes in this process, from tracking professional and personal wins to tracking minor gratitude in life. Practice with Loved ones

People should learn to share their gratitude with family members at the dinner table. This is an essential little ritual to bring about, more so in the presence of children. It is optional to add some ground regulations. For instance, every gratitude must be new, every gratitude should be associated with the day’s activities, and one’s gratitude should be different from another on that particular night. This will help in cultivating creativity and engagement. Reflecting on the events of the day in a positive manner can bring some powerful benefits. Gratitude is good for comfortable sleep. Therefore, expressing gratitude at night is the best approach.

When a group of friends, family members, or roommates decide on a time to share gratitude with one another, they will realize the benefit of additional positive thinking pathways and promote relationships of people living and working together (Kabat-Zin et al. 70)

GRATITUDE WORK

When on a nature walk, or maybe walking to work, people should pay close attention to everything they observe and experience. Recognize the beauty and the feeling of each step one makes. This calms people’s minds and boosts gratitude. Concentrate on the perfection that gratitude creates on the body and enjoy the feeling (Dispenza 105).

WRITE A LETTER

Naturally, people should develop the habit of writing letters of love and gratitude to people who are associated with their lives, be it big or small extent. Writing letters to parents, friends, and teachers who influence our lives informs them of what they have done. This is the additional bonus of strengthening one’s relationships with those he/she cares about.

COMBINE GRATITUDE AND FORGIVENESS

To exercise a combination of gratitude and forgiveness, note down something that hurts or maybe acknowledge pain or anger. One should feel the negative emotions and identify how the original situation benefitted him/her and drove out the negativity. Forgiveness has a sincere influence in building alpha brain waves connected to a calm, steady mental state (Hanson and Rick 71).

Works Cited

Dispenza, Joe. Evolve your brain: The science of changing your mind. Health Communications, Inc., 2008: 103-109 http://www.ask-force.org/web/Ethics/Assaraf-Dispenza-Evolve-Brain-Interview-2007.pdf

Hanson, Rick. Buddha’s Brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom. New Harbinger Publications, 2009: 67-77 http://www.wisebrain.org/slidesets/SlidesHollyhockSept2011.pdf

Kabat-Zinn, Jon, and Thich Nhat Hanh. Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Delta, 2009: 59-72 http://lelandshields.com/Meditation/Full%20Catastrophe%20Living%20-%20Kabat-Zinn.pdf

Van der Kolk, Bessel A. The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books, 2015: 1-2 https://www.thepermanentejournal.org/files/Summer2015/BookReview.pdf