HeARTation-Reinforcing Renewed Emotions : Expressing Gratitude by Dr Priya Rajan

Описание: In positive psychology, gratitude is the human way of acknowledging the good things in life. It is a positive emotional response that we perceive in giving or receiving a benefit from someone. Thanking other or even ourselves, Mother Nature or God - gratitude in multiple forms can enlighten the mind and make us feel happier.

Did you know gratitude has 3 types of benefits ?
1.Physical Well Being ( A Fitter You)
strong immune system - less body aches/pains
better sleep cycles - good cardiovascular health
2.Psychological Advantages
positive thoughts / emotions - increased awareness
increased self-satisfaction - mood enhancer
3.Social Happiness
better communication - more empathy
strong interpersonal r’ships - more likeable among others

Practicing gratitude has had major benefits in overcoming stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and grief; and physical pain. Today, I’m going to introduce 2 techniques which I have extensively used in my mental health practice with various individuals and groups - these have been very successful practices and I would like to share them with you, so that you too can use it to your best ability and nurture desirable changes.

1 : The ‘Praying’ Gesture

In most cultures and religion, we normally clasp our hands with palms pressed together like this in prayer and devotion, or to express gratitude, or even as a greeting. Now, we will use this simple hand position or Anjali Mudra (in Sanskrit) as a form of offering to ourselves or to those who have offered their services to you.
This gesture is great in relieving any stress, or anxiety. Our hands will feel more colder or rigid when stressed, but after doing this simple action, we tend to be comfortable and contended with ourselves, hence allowing blood flow into our hands, making them warm and pliable.
How did you feel? Isn’t it amazing feeling one with yourself and achieving a gratifying moment within you?

2 : Assessing Gratitude
Assessments can be a good way of evaluating how grateful we feel from the inside. Besides gaining insight on our levels of gratitude, it helps increase awareness and presents to us possible ideas to deal with our stress, challenges and negativity
Here’s a Gratitude Quiz developed by Adler & Fagley, which gives a close estimate of what we are grateful in life and how we can cultivate our mind to extract gratitude from the kindness we receive.
Kindly click on this link and take the Quiz and see what your scores are like :-
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/quiz...

I hope you have benefited from today’s reinforcing renewing emotions series involving gratitude. Practicing gratitude is a form of expressing our feelings for others and ourselves.
Gratitude is about feeling the right way, about the right things, and at the right time. It may not give us instant relief from pain and stress, but it brings the feeling of control back to us. Here’s wishing you well on your gratitude journey