Terri's Tuesday Tip of the Week - October 31, 2023

 Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. – Proverb

Enjoy the little things. For one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. - Robert Brault

As we begin the “gratitude month” tomorrow, the author wanted to start the month explaining how gratitude impacts our lives. It is impossible to be grateful and negative at the same time. According to “The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain”, the benefits of gratitude include psychological, physical and social. Psychologically, gratitude provides the reader with a positive outlook on life. Physically, gratitude provides a fitter persona. And socially, gratitude provides an overall better self, including stronger communication, empathy and better relationships.

What does it take to have these benefits of gratitude? There is no grand gesture needed to have these benefits. If we say thank you to someone or we receive the same feedback from an individual, our feeling is of joy and encouragement. Simple expressions of thankfulness help develop relationships, handle difficulties and overcome discouragement with gratitude and motivation.  

For the author, she often tells her boss that she is the pessimist and her boss is the optimist. For the month of November, the author is challenging herself to turn negative emotions into gratitude moments where she finds some aspect of gratitude to change her perspective. When the author came up with this idea, she had a hard week, but the morning she wrote this blog post she wrote at least three things in her gratitude journal after returning from her morning run. Her gratitude included the rain stopping while she ran, finding her trash can that ended up at the end of the street after a bad storm the night before and Fort Worth receiving four inches of rain that was desperately needed.  The whole day the author’s perspective was grateful instead of negative.   

ACTION:  As tomorrow is November 1^st, how will you change your habits to have gratitude moments instead of negative emotions to receive the many benefits that gratitude bestows on us? 

Resource

•       Chowdhury, M. R. (2019, April 9).   The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain. PositivePsychology.com.  https://positivepsychology.com/neuroscience-of-gratitude/