Gratitude: The Ultimate Lifehack
How small things can change everything
In the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, contentment, and growth, we often overlook the profound impact of simple actions. Out of countless life hacks I've toyed with, the underlying workhorse? Gratitude.
Though well-being, health, and happiness are a holistic endeavor, I credit a daily gratitude practice as being a foundational force that subtly influences all aspects of my life. Mood, beliefs, relationships, health, career, decision making, life satisfaction.
Why Practice Gratitude?
Perspective
Gratitude doesn't just adjust your glasses, it transforms what you see. Start focusing on the silver linings, and suddenly, setbacks become setups. Conversely, negative thoughts become the bricks that construct a prison for your mind.
Recall some mornings where you wake up in a bad mood. Left unchecked, your mind ‘searches’ for the negative to reaffirm your feelings. Gratitude’s power lies in its ability to set your default to scan the day looking for the positive. Where focus goes, energy flows.
Grounding
Gratitude is your anchor in the present, easing your ruminations of the past and anxieties about the future.
Emotional Well-being
Elevate happiness, reduces stress, anxiety, and depression.
Physical Health
Improve sleep, enhance immune function, lower blood pressure, manage weight, boost pain tolerance, regulate glucose levels, and even potentially extend lifespan.
Relationships
Sharing gratitude with others strengthens bonds and fosters resilience.
How Gratitude Affects Your Biology
Rewiring the brain
Engaging in gratitude stimulates the Prefrontal Cortex, essential for decision-making, impulse control, and working memory.
Neurons fire in relation to our thoughts. Imagine a dense forest where every positive thought sprouts a new branch.
These aren't just any branches; they're dendrites, connecting, extending, and intertwining. Mirroring a vast network of trees and mycelium.
This isn’t a temporary change, your brain has neural plasticity. Meaning it can reorganize its structure, functions, and connections through various stimuli.
Positive thoughts etch new memories, forging pathways through your mind. As new events are experienced, memories are recalled, and thoughts are manifested, your brain navigates these pathways like an experienced traveler.
Each time these pathways are traversed with gratitude, there is a compounding affinity towards a positive perspective. The proximity and connections between dendrites and synapses increases and strengthens, quickening your propensity to recall or recreate those thoughts and learnings.
The more of these pathways that are programmed by gratitude, the more positivity you’re inclined to think, feel, and ultimately experience in your life.
A Neural Cocktail Party
Good stuff goes up
Dopamine: Often seen as the brain's reward ticket, dopamine evokes motivation, pleasure, and vitality.
Serotonin: The ‘happiness chemical’ contributes to feelings of well-being, stabilizes our mood, and helps us feel more relaxed.
Oxytocin: The "love" hormone plays a role in social bonding, trust, and relationship-building. This most prominently comes through social interactions, like expressing thanks to someone.
Bad stuff goes down
Cortisol: Chronic exposure to the stress hormone leads to anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, and all other sorts of awful conditions.
Getting Started Is Easy
Keep a pen and paper by your bed.
Each morning, write down 3 specific things you’re grateful for.
Stay committed. Consistency compounds the benefits over time.
That’s it. Keep it simple and start small. Once your habit forms…
You Have Options
Practice with a partner. Bounce a daily email with a friend, lover, or teammate.
Send a gratitude email or letter. Take some time to write a note to someone you are grateful for. This could be a friend, family member, colleague, or even a stranger who has done something kind for you. Let them know how much you appreciate them and why they are special to you.
Take a gratitude walk. This is a great way to connect with nature and appreciate the beauty of the world around you. As you walk, take some time to notice the things you are grateful for, such as the trees, the flowers, the birds, the sun, and the sky.
Guided meditation. There are many different gratitude meditations available online and in apps. I’ve used and recommend Healthy Minds or Headspace.
Over time, you may notice
You get luckier (winning a raffle, skipping traffic, serendipitously meeting the right people at the right time).
You appreciate the people and things around you more.
You interact with others differently; with more patience, openness, humility, and serenity.
Challenges and setbacks seem less painful or difficult. Often they reveal valuable lessons that improve your life.
Your inner voice becomes gentler to yourself.
Still Skeptical?
Go in-depth with a neuroscientist & professor, Andrew Huberman:
Or delve into the research:
https://research.com/education/scientific-benefits-of-gratitude
What I’m Doing This Week
Gratitude
I’m grateful to have experienced the school of hard knocks many times over and can now say NO. No to destructive thoughts, ideas, beliefs, habits, people, and situations. Saying no creates the space for the better things in your life: love, kindness, acceptance, alignment, abundance, and flow.
Lesson Learned
30 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked 80 hours a week and burned yourself out on a job… will be your children. Don’t waste your precious time with them.
Listening to
What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
Watching
Why Beautiful Things Make Us Happy - By Kurzgesagt
Reading
As a Relationship Coach, These Are the 5 Things About Love I Tell Every Couple by Julie Nguyen
She’s the real deal.
Self-care
Nature, sunlight, ocean, quality sleep, fascia work, meditation, stretching, Qi Gong, pullups