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- Re: Gratitude as a Health Tool
Gratitude as a Health Tool
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Gratitude as a Health Tool
Gratitude can improve your life, and may even save it! No really. Dartmouth posted this web page on the importance of gratitude: http://www.umassd.edu/counseling/forparents/reccomendedreadings/theimportanceofgratitude/
Here’s a clip from that page:
"Researchers ... are turning their attention to the study of gratitude and its relationship to health and mental well-being. I will present some of their findings here to help us understand how gratitude is helpful and why it's important to our well-being.
People who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis have been found to exercise more regularly, have fewer physical symptoms, feel better about their lives as a whole, and feel more optimistic about their upcoming week as compared to those who keep journals recording the stressors or neutral events of their lives.
Daily discussion of gratitude results in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, energy, and sleep duration and quality. Grateful people also report lower levels of depression and stress, although they do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.
People who think about, talk about, or write about gratitude daily are more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or offered emotional support to another person.
Those with a disposition towards gratitude are found to place less importance on material goods, are less likely to judge their own or others success in terms of possessions accumulated, are less envious of wealthy people, and are more likely to share their possessions with others.
Emerging research suggests that daily gratitude practices may have some preventative benefits in warding of coronary artery disease."
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- gratitude why bother
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@LaDolceVita - Glad you're doing better today! 🙂
I'm grateful for all the options I have, to entertain myself in retirement!
Today is my town's "special day", with a mega craft fair bringing in exhibitors from all over the region, and a 10K race around town. Attendance at the fair is free; last year I bought a fossilized shell necklace at a reasonable price.
I love the opera, but the Metropolitan Opera in NYC has become prohibitive .. $375 for a front orchestra seat! Instead, I've gotten tickets for about 6 plays & other live performances at regional theaters .. for the same total amount of money!
Registered on Online Community since 2007!
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I am not a fan of insects, but the ones that are large enough, are more like "animals" to me :). I occasionally get camel crickets in the house; now that I know what they are, I gently scoop them up, and put them back outside again!
Registered on Online Community since 2007!
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I am happy again today and grateful that I hardly ever stay down for too long. I feel in conttrol of my life again. And we are going to have our first fall like weather of the season today. October is the most beautiful month in the southeast and makes one glad to be alive.
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@LaDolceVita What @EveRH Said! Yay you!
I'm grateful for the human spirit, that we can endure and press on and reason and overcome (not to mention find better entertainment values than $375 opera seats! Woot!).
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As we prepare for our trip to Yellowstone, I must admit gratitude for those who designed this (possible) mirage of bear safety.
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@Epster - I was thinking of you last night, when watching the Animal Planet series, "Dr. Jeff, Rocky Mountain Vet"; his practice is in Denver. One of the episodes showed him & another vet up at a bison ranch, vaccinating them & stamping an ear for that. They drive the bison into a narrow rail enclosure, so their head is near the vet, then open the end & out that animal bounces. He said there would be no way for them to handle a loose animal, to hold it for an injection. They also went to a farm with goats, that brings children in to learn about caring for them; that was also for vaccinations.
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I'm grateful for Fridays! Woot!
Not to mention that we finished resurfacing our driveway yesterday and I was able to remove the honey supers from the beehives without getting stung (here comes the honey harvest!).
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@Epster - Are "supers" the frames on which the bees make their honeycomb? Years ago, I was on my town's Planning Board, and we had an application to subdivide a property where the owner kept bees. It was a little disconcerting having to walk the property, with bees buzzing around, but the owner said they didn't bother people .. and they didn't. He also gave me a paper plate with a piece of honeycomb on it .. fresh honey!
I am grateful that it's a little cooler today, although dark & dreary. I guess it's an appropriately somber day to mark the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, and remember all the people who died. My town will have a memorial ceremony Sunday afternoon, honoring the victims from our area.
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I'm grateful for a good night's sleep, and a tall cup of coffee. Now bring it*, sez me!
* today's it: working on resurfacing the neighbor's driveway
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I watched a "Catfish" mini-marathon on TV last night, and am grateful that I've never been so naive or desperate, as to think exchanging posts online with someone, constitutes are "real" romantic relationship!
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I'm grateful for the fact that gratitude is contagious! (Achoo!)
Annnnnd: I'm grateful for this unscripted life. One day I'm processing a bunch of homegrown fish, the next day I'm putting in 35 miles on the bike trail and visiting the art museum. Then it'll be a day of volunteering on the community road repair project followed by a day spent harvesting honey and making lip balm, followed by a hike along the Continental Divide. Wacky and marvelous at the same time.
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I am grateful that my lovely mother is still here at 94, and still manages to impart words of wisdom to me. I am grateful that I can sit on the back screened porch and watch the rain come down on the flake, and hear the drops falling on the leaves. So peacefully
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@eb3888 wrote:
Swiss psychologist and father of streets research in an epilogue claimed gratefulness has greatest impact on reducing stress.
Indeed. An attitude of gratitude, as we call it, will change far more than a person's facial expression.
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@jeraisa wrote:An attitude of gratitude, as we call it, will change far more than a person's facial expression.
Epster! Great weekly quote for work! Mind if i use it?
Absolutely: use at will.
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Hmmm Gratitude, a lost art now due to mass paranoia of a hidden agenda. Unfortunate but so true in this day and age. Gratitude was part of my upbringing and was a standard act for any good relationship wether it be family, friends or strangers. To this day, when I do or say something to someone out of gratitude for a kind act or word, most of the time I get the look that says, "what do you want". Ironically, I feel great respect and "gratitude" for anyone who appreciates and practices gratitude the way it was intended. Of course it is a health tool but it should always be a normal process.
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My eldest uncle was born at home early in the 20th century, and was an "instrument baby", whose skull was punctured by the physician. His injury left him crippled .. an innocent baby. He had a great attitude and was always happy! When he had to be placed in a nursing home later in life, one of his good friends was a man who'd had polio as a child, and been crippled by it. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair, in the home. Despite that, he also had a very positive attitude; he just loved going to camp, where he could swim & play wheelchair basketball.
It was very motivating to know both of them, and I'm grateful for that opportunity!
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