We didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Greece, where I grew up, but I have come to really like this American holiday.
For starters, I like roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry relish, but mostly I like Thanksgiving because it is officially the day when we are invited to practice gratitude.
Gratitude is a powerful human emotion. We can choose how to respond to life and make conscious choices about where to invest our attention. I recommend choosing gratitude.
Not that long ago I used to roll my eyes when anyone mentioned the myriad benefits of a gratitude practice. Not only was I a scientist through and through, but I also lived by the philosophy, “no pain, no gain.”
But as it turns out, I was wrong!
Ample scientific evidence exists that clearly proves that the choice to place our attention on elements we are grateful for can lead to more happiness, physical health, and meaningful and satisfying relationships.
It takes twenty-one days to form a habit. I invite you to use the following twenty-one guideposts, as thoughts to start your day. You can also use them as your chosen focal point to redirect your attention to, every time something happens in your day that takes you off-balance.
We have no control over much in life, like the economy or our obnoxious work colleague.
On the other hand, we have complete control over what we choose to put our attention on. Focusing on positive things we are grateful for has a tremendous impact on our happiness, health, and performance.
So, let’s begin!
Day 1: What do you love about yourself today? I invite you to view yourself as the amazing human being that you truly are, free of concerns about your abilities, your age, your body shape or size. Instead, consider how many challenges you have already overcome, how much adversity you have endured, and in how many ways you have positively impacted the world we live in throughout the course of your life.
Day 2: Celebrate what a scientific marvel you are. If you are wondering how a certain part of your anatomy looks in a specific type of outfit, I invite you to shift your attention to the fact that in every second you are alive your brain orchestrates six trillion actions using the 100 trillion cells of your body to keep you in perfect balance. That realization should put any concerns about size and parts of your anatomy into perspective!
Day 3: Take a few moments to appreciate your heart. Consider that no matter how many times your heart is broken over the course of your life, it will continue to beat over 100,000 times per day sending blood to 60,000 miles of blood vessels!
Day 4: Take a few moments to appreciate one aspect of yourself that you usually do not like. Challenging parts of ourselves are a little bit like a bratty child that acts up when ignored. By embracing a negative part of ourselves, for example, our inner critic, we make friends with it and then we can work together toward our purpose.
Day 5: Cherish the power of your breath. Remember that your breath can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, the part of you that is your natural antidote to the stress response! Isn’t it funny that we look for power externally in things like money and material assets when we have so much internal power to shut down what does not serve us and open the doors to so many wonderful things simply through the power of our breath?
Day 6: Treasure your ability to calm your nervous system on demand.
A calm nervous system halts the production of cortisol, which in large quantities interferes with the optimal functioning of your body systems (immune and digestive, just to name a couple). Did you know you are a fabulous chemist and scientist in the laboratory of your life every moment you are alive? By simply changing the narrative we give to a life situation, no matter how stressful the situation may be, we can calm our nervous system. For example, if we just got laid off, we can acknowledge that the situation is challenging, but focus on how many times we have been able to overcome similar situations in the past, instead of how this is the “end of the world.”
Day 7: Recognize the incredible power you have within your amazing neurobiology! Being in a balanced state of gratitude allows you access to the relational parts of your brain (right hemisphere) and allows you improved functioning of executive regulation (pre-frontal cortex). Is there a person in your life that you would love to share a positive relationship with? Recount five things you love about them before you talk to or see them next time and notice what happens!
Day 8: Be grateful for the gift of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the greatest neuroscience discovery of the last 150 years. We can grow regions of our brain associated with desired traits by simply shifting our attention to having experiences that foster those traits. For example, we grow optimism by consciously shifting our attention to being grateful for the positive sides of even negative experiences.
Day 9: Revere in your ability to activate your reward center and trigger the release of dopamine. You can activate dopamine, our “feel good” hormone, simply by identifying rewarding aspects of all experiences. When our “feel good” hormones get triggered by certain experiences, these experiences are flagged for protection and safekeeping. This means that over time, one positive experience at a time, your automatic response will become gratitude.
Day 10: Fill your heart with gratitude for a person that makes you feel cared for. When we consciously recall people and situations that make us feel good, our body functions (heart rate, temperature, blood pressure) remain at optimal levels. In todays’ era of information overload, we seem to operate from our stress response state quite a bit more frequently than what we were physiologically designed to handle. Thank heavens we have a natural antidote for this problem!
Day 11: Adore your strong muscles today. Do something that gives you the chance to encounter your physical strength. And don’t forget that much like muscle fitness, gratitude sculpts and increases cortical tissue in brain regions that are associated with harmonious emotional regulation. That means that the more time you invest in being grateful, the better you can process and manage negative emotions like fear and anger.
Day 12: Savor and trust in the universe that you are part of. Feel free to let go of what does not serve you, knowing that when you allow yourself to be the beautiful, amazing you who you are in your true essence, the whole universe will conspire to bring to your path all that you need. Have faith and trust the universe.
Day 13: Nurture the joy you hold inside your heart! We are so used to living life from a threatened state focusing on the challenging aspects of existence. Joy is not something that we arrive at in a conditioned manner and trust me—it does not come when we arrive at certain material milestones. We can find joy in the beauty of appreciating mundane details like autumn rain drops or being fully present without getting hi-jacked by past regrets or future worries. Let go of concerns about what’s to come.
Day 14: Be grateful for the ones that caused you pain. I know this does not seem like a typical thing to be grateful for or one that is easy for us to do. I invite you to consider that everything that comes along our path has a beautiful and precious reason and purpose. Acknowledge that when our interaction with another ends up in suffering, it is an incredible, fertile ground for growth for us. What is the message this person is here to give you? What can you do within your control to arrive at a harmonious outcome with another as a result of the lessons learned from this experience?
Day 15: Delight in your ability to be an active participant in reciprocity. Did you know that when you share gratitude with another it spreads like a positive, wonderful, wildfire? It feels good to be the recipient of appreciation and it drives us to “pay it forward” to others. Gratitude allows you to be part of a positivity wave that has the power to triumph over so many unnecessary human conditions, like hate, discrimination, and intolerance.
Day 16: Think about a recent situation when you did something great. How did that feel? Did you know that when you pause and actively recall what something wonderful felt like, you actually enhance your brains ability to replace negative, pre-existing wiring with positivity?
Day 17: Love your brain today. Your immaculate brain cannot focus on too many things at the same time, so if you occupy as many of your neurons (brain cells) as you can with gratitude, you have to let go of thoughts of self-doubt that might come up. This is the basis of many proven strategies, like mindfulness meditation, that have the power to increase our focus on one positive thing and away from our scattered “monkey mind.”
Day 18: Bring consciousness to how brilliant you are. As you go about cooking your meals, pouring your heart into your work, or raising your children, about thirty billion basic nervous system cells are at work forming the fiber of your life. Through nerve cell connections, our brains will select and save the experiences we have taught it to value. You can take action now, by telling your brain what YOU value.
Day 19: You are an inspiration to others simply by the choice of your actions. Consider how many great things you actually do every day. Beyond business plans and professional goal attainments, think of all the times you make someone smile! You have so many choices of actions you can take. I invite you to choose to nurture someone special today, or to simply empower and inspire the people around you by being the wonderful you that you are.
Day 20: Enshrine your power of responsibility and accountability. By recognizing which of your chosen views and actions do not take you to a destination you wish to arrive at, you actually give yourself the gift of choice. You can then play with your glorious ability to change anything that does not serve you. This is our natural antidote to learned helplessness, which fosters depression, as Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, has shown us.
Day 21: Embrace the myriad of elements that make you who you are. You are just as amazing as Aristotle or Albert Einstein! Embrace your beauty and all of your imperfections, decide which ones you want to work on, and rest peaceful that you are more than enough just the way you are.
A fellow Greek by the name of Plato once said: “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.”
It is truly amazing that over 2,500 years after Plato noted this modern research has proven him right.
But what is more amazing is that by making the simple choice of practicing gratitude everyday, we can harness the promethean light of Greek philosophers and modern science to illuminate our path to optimal well-being.
Happy Thanksgiving!