NCTV Episode 71

Continuing with the series of bitesize health tip videos which can be found here on my YouTube Channel, this episode, includes:-

  • Why this is ‘a thing’
  • The health benefits
  • How to practice gratitude
  • 10 ways to become more grateful
  • The British Bulldog

Transcript

If you’d prefer to read the content within, rather than watch the video, then feel free to read the transcript, as follows:-

Hello and welcome to NCTV Episode 71 which is all about Gratitude.

Over the past decade, psychologists have not only identified the great social, psychological and physical health benefits that come from giving thanks, they’ve zeroed in on some concrete practices that help you reap those benefits.

One of the most popular practices is to keep a gratitude journal or diary. The simple act of writing down the things for which we’re grateful can have benefits including better sleep, fewer symptoms of illness, and more happiness among adults and kids alike.

The basic practice is straightforward. In many of the studies, people are simply instructed to record five things they experienced in the past week for which they’re grateful. The entries are supposed to be brief – just a single sentence – and they range from the mundane (“waking up this morning”) to the sublime such as winning the lottery or even to the timeless – as are the Rolling Stones.

However, not everyone has found it to be helpful and if you’re one of them, some tips might be to:-

  • Try subtraction instead of just addition. One effective way of stimulating gratitude is to reflect on what your life would be like without certain blessings, rather than just tallying up all those good things.
  • Also be sure to savour the surprises and record the unexpected, as these tend to elicit stronger levels of gratitude.
  • And lastly, don’t overdo it. If you find daily writing is too much then simply do it once or twice a week.

Gratitude is really about forcing yourself to pay attention to the good things in life you’d otherwise take for granted. So relish and savour your entries rather than just hurry through them like you’re writing a grocery list. It’s performed in written form because this helps to organise your thoughts and in essence, allows you to see the meaning of events going on around you, to create meaning in your own life.

For some inspiration, here are 10 Ways To Becoming More Grateful

1) As mentioned, Keep a Gratitude Journal and establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the good things that you enjoy. Gratitude could be associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes or valued people in your life.

2) Remember the Bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.

3) Ask Yourself Three Questions. Using the meditation technique known as Naikan, the questions to reflect upon are:

  • “What have I received?”
  • “What have I given?”
  • and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”

4) Learn Prayers of Gratitude. In many spiritual traditions, prayers of gratitude are considered to be the most powerful form of prayer because through these prayers, people recognise the ultimate source of all they are, and all they will ever be.

5) Come to Your Senses. Through our senses – the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear – we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.

6) Use Visual Reminders because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness. Visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude. Often, the best visual reminders are other people, photographs, trinkets or keepsakes.

7) Make a Vow to Practise Gratitude. Research shows that making an oath to perform a behaviour increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings every day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.

8) Watch your Language Grateful people have a particular linguistic style that uses words such as gifts, givers, blessed, fortunate and abundance. In gratitude, you should not focus on how inherently good you are, but rather on the inherently good things that others have done on your behalf.

9) Go Through the Motions. If you go through grateful motions, the emotion of gratitude should be triggered. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you and writing letters of gratitude.

10) Think Outside the Box. If you want to make the most out of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, you must creatively look for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful.

So that concludes today, and I look forward to seeing you again next time for some more bitesize bits to help flourish. Bye bye for now.