thankfulness Archives - Amazing Health Advances

One Month to a Grateful Heart

AHA Publisher — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 07:00:10 +0000

Dr. Don Colbert – Heart check: Do you have a grateful heart? While we often talk about physical heart health, it’s just as important to look at emotional and spiritual heart health. If you embody gratefulness, you are likely able to look past the everyday struggles and find peace in life’s turmoil. But if not, you may be sinking in a pit of anxiety, jealousy, or pessimism. What’s more, you might be missing an amazing opportunity to improve physical health through gratitude. Honestly, it’s not always easy to have a grateful heart. However, our God has promised to help us in the journey to a truly grateful heart, unshaken by life’s ups and downs. It’s not your burden to bear alone, but a beautiful walk with God. One Month to a Grateful Heart During November, take a cue from the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday and put gratitude into practice every day. Here are 4 ways to strengthen your own heart with daily thanksgiving throughout the month. 1. SPEND TIME IN GOD’S WORD AND IN PRAYER. When Jesus prayed, He praised God. At the Last Supper, just hours before His crucifixion, He thanked God. This is the example we have: Give praise and be thankful. Of course, this can be easier said than done when life gets tough. But, the more you spend time with God, the Giver of all good things, the more you will see just how good He is. Try spending time with Him, even if just a few minutes, every single day. From there, the gratitude in your heart can overflow into every other part of your life. 2. ACKNOWLEDGE THE THINGS FOR WHICH YOU ARE GRATEFUL, ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Have you heard of the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp? It is a beautiful portrayal of gratitude in a daily, ordinary life. Ann teaches that gratitude precedes God’s miracles in Scripture and throughout our own lives. In the book, Ann tells the story of how she came to the challenge of writing down 1000 things she was thankful for. She kept a notepad and pen handy, and wrote down small and big gratitudes, throughout each day. For her, it was life changing. Do you think a daily, hourly, moment-by-moment focus on gratitude could change your life? What do you have to lose? Take this challenge in November. Start small, and write just a few per day if you’d like. Keep your mind and your attitude focused on the things for which you are thankful! 3. LOOK OUTSIDE YOURSELF When we are in the middle of turmoil or feeling defeated, it’s very easy to lose sight of our own blessings. One of the best cures? Get involved with helping others! Taking the focus off ourselves and blessing others is a great way to develop a grateful heart. You can pray for others daily. You can bless others with a note, text, or encouraging call. You can give small gifts out of the blue – anything from flowers from your garden to a coffee gift card. Or, get involved in a bigger operation with an established charitable group. 4. GIVE YOURSELF LOTS OF GRACE Lastly, there’s no room for perfectionism here. Gratitude requires grace. If you slip up, feel down, miss a day of writing down your blessings, or just have a negative attitude for a day, give yourself grace. As you do, you’ll learn to take captive the negative thoughts, forgive yourself, and move on quickly. If you’re feeling sad about yourself, it’s difficult to simultaneously feel grateful. We serve a God who not only forgives us, but takes our worries and cares from us. Give yourself grace and continue to look for your blessings each day. A Grateful Heart Bolsters Physical Health Did you know a grateful heart is actually good for you, physically? It’s true. Some of the health benefits of a grateful heart include: Stronger mental health: Believe it or not, you can decrease cortisol, the stress hormone, by up to 23% by practicing gratitude (1). What’s more, healthcare practitioners have sustained lower perceived stress (decrease of 28%) and depression by keeping a gratitude journal (2). Controlling cortisol is crucially important to overall health. Healthier Hearts: In studies, gratitude is associated with better cholesterol levels, lowered blood pressure and decreased heart rate variability. This all works together to improve cardiovascular health and overall health (4, 5). Ease with Change and Healthy Habits: Some benefits of gratitude work in reverse. Researchers have found that those who practice gratitude also tend to make healthier choices. Specifically, there’s an association between those who are reportedly grateful and less use of tobacco, more exercise, and better food choices (5, 6). On the flip side, gratitude intervention shows promise when helping patients increase healthy habits. In one study, 31% of participants quit smoking and maintained abstinence after 6 months, compared to meta-analysis averages of 23% with a nicotine patch alone (7). Stronger Immune Function: Gratitude and optimism can actually improve your body’s response to inflammation. Studies have found that our bodies produce more disease-fighting cells when we are grateful and optimistic (11). In addition, anytime you reduce cortisol, you maintain a healthier balance with DHEA levels. This supports healthy immune function (8). Better Sleep and Healthy Aging: One key factor to healthy aging is brain health. One necessity for brain health is sleep. Fortunately, gratitude supports better sleep (9)! In one study, gratitude was linked to a 10 percent improvement in sleep and a 19 percent decrease in depression levels in patients with insomnia (10). Looking for More Ways to Improve Physical and Mental Health? Did you know there’s an all-natural oil that can help with stress and anxious feelings? In addition, it supports health throughout the body! Hemp oil, specifically nano-particle oils like those in Dr. Colbert’s Nano-Science Hemp Oil, promotes health from your brain to your toes. We are fortunate to be able to use natural plants in our lives to support our health. Another thing for which to be grateful! Bottom Line November is the perfect opportunity to focus on a grateful heart. Make it count! Spend time with God, truly seek out and list your blessings, help and encourage others, and give yourself grace this month! To read the original article click here.

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Gratitude Challenge: 250+ Gratitudes By Thanksgiving

AHA Publisher — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 08:00:59 +0000

Dr. Don Colbert – Do you think gratitude could change your life? Not just the good “feelings” of gratitude, but the actual, slow-down-and-write-it-down act of gratitude. Do you think writing 10 gratitudes, big or small but meaningful to you, each day from [now] until Thanksgiving would be worth it? Here’s our gratitude challenge, how it may change your life, and how it will change your health. Gratitude Challenge: 250+ Written Gratitudes By Thanksgiving If you’ve ever read Ann Voskamp’s book, 1000 gifts, you know what daily gratitudes can mean to someone. How they can take a heart that’s downtrodden, and show it the small and big miracles, even in an ordinary life… The challenge is simple. Get any paper and a pen. It can be a notebook, a journal, or a loose paper found on your countertop (you may want to staple loose papers together in the end). Starting November 1st, simply keep the paper nearby and write down things you’re grateful for throughout your day. There’s no need to be super-legalistic about it, but if you can aim for ten per day to start, you’ll end up with more than 250 written gratitudes by Thanksgiving! What counts? Everything any anything for which your heart is grateful. The blue of the sky on a clear day. The sparkle of an icicle. The kiss of a child. The smile of a spouse. The dinner on the table. In fact, the more ordinary, the better. If we can be grateful in ordinary life, we can learn to appreciate what God has given us, and this will in turn overflow as love and trust in Him. And what’s more, it won’t just change your heart. God has given us this simple practice that can also improve our health. 5 Ways the Gratitude Challenge Can Improve Health 1. Mental Health Practicing gratitude reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, by up to 23% (1). What’s more, health care practitioners have sustained lower perceived stress (decrease of 28%) and depression by keeping a gratitude journal (2). This is important. High, chronic cortisol levels are associated with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart health, and metabolic syndrome (3). Most modern stress is mental rather than physical. It’s caused by relationships, traffic, computer malfunction, and busy schedules. It’s not typically a physical threat. When internalized, it wages war on our body systems. Gratitude also: • Reduces negative emotions such as envy, regret, and resentment • Increases self-esteem • Lowers the risk of depression • Increases positive emotions such as empathy for others 2. Heart Health Be thankful with a grateful heart. Amazingly, a grateful heart is a healthier heart. In studies, gratitude is associated with better cholesterol levels, lower your blood pressure and decreased heart rate variability. This all works together to improve cardiovascular health and overall health (4, 5). 3. Healthy Habits and Change Studies show that those who practice gratitude also tend to make healthier choices. Specifically, there’s an association between those who are reportedly grateful and less use of tobacco, more exercise, and better food choices (5, 6). As a therapy, gratitude intervention shows promise when helping patients increase healthy habits. In one study, 31% of participants quit smoking and maintained abstinence after 6 months, compared to meta-analysis averages of 23% with a nicotine patch alone (7). 4. Immune System Health Gratitude and optimism can actually improve your body’s response to disease. How? Studies have found that our bodies produce more disease-fighting cells when we are grateful and optimistic (11). What’s more, as we age our immune function declines, in part due to an imbalance in cortisol vs. dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). If we reduce chronic cortisol, we can maintain a healthier balance with DHEA levels and immune function (8). 5. Healthy Aging and Better Sleep A crucial factor in healthy aging is brain health. One crucial habit for brain health is sleep. As you practice gratitude, you improve sleep. In fact, a study of 400 individuals, many of whom had sleep disorders, found that writing gratitudes before sleep improves both the quality and duration of sleep (9). In another study, gratitude has was linked to a 10 percent improvement in sleep and a 19 percent decrease in depression levels in patients with chronic disease and insomnia (10). Bottom Line Don’t wait. Get your paper and pen ready. Find a way to keep it with you and begin your gratitude journal on November 1st. There’s nothing magic about November; but the month dedicated to Thanksgiving is a wonderful reminder of the harvest God provides, the beauty in changing seasons, and His unchanging faithfulness. And if you find this practice to be the amazing gift many do, you may want to just keep going. Two-hundred-fifty written gratitudes, then 500, then 1000, then a lifetime. Take the gratitude challenge and see if God uses it to change your life and health. To read the original article click here. For more articles by Dr. Colbert click here.

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