Your Brain On Gratitude

In this episode, Terri details how gratitude influences your brain activity and, in turn, your thoughts and attitude. You'll discover gratitude for the little things turns you toward hope and away from discouragement. Get a Gratitude List of Bible Verses jump-starting your gratitude practice.

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Transcript

Welcome to Anchored Not Anxious. This is where you gain a deep belief your life matters to God and discover the anchoring practices to manage anxiety and worry. I'm Terri Hutchinson, your host. In this episode you'll discover the protective barrier gratitude erects against daily negative messaging. Let's get into it. In the last few years, whether in magazines, podcasts, streaming sources, all have issued a call to live grateful. Giving thanks has been a major focus. I'm certain, we take a lot for granted. But are we actually ungrateful? Well, yes if we cannot recognize what's good and right but we focus solely on what's wrong and broken. And despite knowing we should be grateful, doesn't it feel like another item on the to-do list? We're busy, so busy, aren't we. Who has time to find the rose petal in the pile of manure? Can expressing gratitude and thankfulness truly change us? Should we make time for and place an emphasis on gratitude? The science says we should. Science says gratitude, alters and lingers in our medial prefrontal cortex. This is why gratitude acts like a protective force field against negative messaging. Even your own. Gratitude enhances your ability to see and find what is right, working well, and good. Take a second and consider your average day. How much time do you invest in problem solving or finding the root cause of why something is not working? We are mono-focused on troubleshooting, threat awareness, and searching for errors. Our work environment, our occupation, or a negative outlook drives this state of mind. Problem solving root cause analysis and searching for errors has its place. It is necessary, but can we turn it off? When 75% of all we see or find is the wrong, the failing, the broken, it activates our critical judgment. Then our perspective is skewed and damaged. We see through a lens etched with a deep scratch and our obsession with the defect prevents us from seeing anything else. We can replace the scratched lens with the new one if we search for reasons to express gratitude. I can admit to having trouble with expressing gratitude. It's often during times of frustration hurt or when things don't go my way. It's funny how my mind goes completely blank when I attempt to list what I'm grateful for. If I stay with it, eventually I find my go tos. You know, thanking the Lord for food. Grateful for my employment. Thankful for friends. And forgiveness and mercy and so on. All of these are fine reasons for gratitude. But a gratitude practice can be far more meaningful if we focus on the details. For instance, have you ever expressed gratitude for the organs working well in your body? Sounds odd. But why not? Don't we eagerly complain about the body parts, not operating the way we want. We get irritated with cranky joints and muscles. The migraines, our asthma, our cardiac malfunction. Yet, we don't appreciate what is working at an optimal level. Your brain, eyesight, bones, lungs, intestines. Isn't gratitude appropriate for what's right in your body? What about your financial situation? A focus on what you lack edges out gratitude. For those of you in a period of financial setback, it hurts and it's like being in a pit. If you can muster it, attempt asking God to show you where he is in it. Ask the Lord to help you see him with you and for you. Be watching for the small ways you get what you need just in time. What about your employment? I had a job where retaliation was rampant and I couldn't quit. I couldn't take another position. So I dug deep to find the good in being with those people in that workplace. I expressed gratitude for my manager, coworker,  for God's hand with me in that place. Mostly, I thanked God for providing the employment itself because we know it's not to be taken for granted. Another aspect of gratitude is being thankful for what is not happening or has not happened. Here's an example. I drove 70 minutes to, and from work every day in the dark, most of the year for six years. Never was I involved in a collision in the heavy traffic. Most every day, I express gratitude for that fact. I believe living well in mind and spirit is dependent on our outlook. We can zero in on the brokenness of any situation. Or we can appreciate the small and intricate ways things are working together for our good. In whatever area of your life, where it's dismal, ugly, worth cursing, broken or in shambles. Try to unearth that golden nugget of gratitude. Sometimes we feel so low no gratitude can be found. Turn your mind's eye and physical sight toward anything praise worthy, beautiful, noble, or good. Find gratitude for family, for friends, for nature. Linger there. Fan the flame of hope within your soul. Gratitude is not just an outlook or an attitude. Neuroscience research says when we feed the brain gratitude it enhances neural activity and keeps it enhanced. This is where the wellbeing comes in. The more grateful we become the more enhanced the neural activity. This is how we change our defective scratched lens that skews our perspective. We can train the brain and our minds eye. How do we do it? First, we dwell on gratitude possibilities. We get into the nitty gritty, the details like the body organ example, I proposed. Dig for reasons to be grateful and thankful. Make a list. Gratitude or thankfulness for the details and small stuff is the best focus for keeping us from overwhelm of all that's broken and messed up. Here are a few tips for creating gratitude prompts, cultivating a protective barrier against negative messaging. I encourage you to do it because you will change your view of the world around you. If you are an auditory learner, I suggest recording a grateful list on your phone's voice recorder. Play these back daily pausing the recording periodically to fully engage in thankfulness. If you are a visual learner, I suggest writing out your grateful list on paper or your phone. I read these aloud or silently, but linger over each. These easy to start options can move you into a gratitude session no matter where you are. Do it as an act of self-compassion for whole health. Go to the podcast website and find a free Gratitude List of Bible Verses to jumpstart your gratitude practice. Thank you for listening. It would mean so much if you would leave a comment on the podcast app. I would love to know what you're thinking. What you think matters to me. Until next time.