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GratitudeUnlocked 6/7: Restore Yourself — The Micro-Practice That Calms the Noise #SelfCareSaturday

• Derek H. Suite, M.D.

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Science Soul Success

When the week leaves your nerves buzzing
 and your mind racing,
 you don’t need another chore.
 You need a switch you can flip.
 And gratitude is one of the cleanest ones we’ve got.

A single moment of thanks
 can settle the body faster than most people realize.
 Not magic—
 biology.

Dr. Robert Emmons’ research shows it clearly:
 consistent gratitude can raise happiness by 25%,
 strengthen the immune system,
 lower inflammation,
 and support a healthier heart.

And as Toni Morrison said,
 “This is precisely the time when artists go to work.”
Your self-care is your work.
Your repair is your resistance.

So let’s get practical.
 Here’s your one-breath ritual:
 Pause.
 Exhale longer than you inhale.
 Name one small, steady, true thing you’re grateful for.

That’s it.
 That tiny cue activates the vagus nerve,
 interrupts the HPA axis stress loop,
 brings blood flow back to the prefrontal cortex,
 and cools the amygdala so you can think clearly
 and feel present again.

This is self-care in its real form:
 repair over indulgence.
 Presence over escape.
 Rest over running.

And gratitude sets you up for deeper sleep tonight.
 Research shows evening gratitude boosts slow-wave sleep—
 the deep phase that repairs your muscles,
 rebuilds your energy,
 and resets your mind.

Today’s affirmation:
 “I let gratitude restore me—mind, body, and soul.”

This isn’t performative positivity.
 This is a grounded, repeatable method
 for regulating stress
 and reclaiming enoughness
 in the middle of a busy life.

Try the micro-practice.
 Notice what shifts.
 And share your one small thing with us.

If this resonates, follow the show,
 leave a review,
 and send this to someone who needs a calmer Saturday.

#SelfCareSaturday #GratitudeUnlocked #ScienceSoulSuccess #StressReset #VagusNerve #SlowWaveSleep

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome. Welcome back to Self-Care Saturday. This is The Sweet Spot. Science, Soul, and Success coming together to help us live the best lives ever. To help us be the best versions of ourselves. This is Dr. Derek Sweet. I'm your host. I'm a board-certified psychiatrist. I work in high performance. More than that, I'm a fellow traveler with you. I'm a fellow traveler just walking alongside you as we unpack gratitude. This entire month has been devoted to gratitude. And this week, we've spent quite a bit of time in the book Thanks, written by Dr. Robert Emmons, the foremost researcher on gratitude, particularly its biology. So this is Saturday, a day where everything typically slows down just enough for your mind, your body, and your spirit to catch up with each other. Now that said, Saturday is also the only day some of us have to catch up on all those errands, right? So many things to do. You would think that we would wind down at the end of the week, but sometimes Saturday is the day we wind up. So I'm gonna challenge you today to find a few moments for self-care. And today we're taking a different angle on gratitude. One that Dr. Emmons talks about beautifully in this book, thanks. I encourage you to pick up the book. Because gratitude isn't only a performance tool, like we've been arguing from Dr. Emmons' book here, it's a self-care system, a happiness system, and even a longevity system. You know what amazes me is that there's so much research and so much power and gratitude that I don't know why it's not taught in school. It should be a part of the curriculum. I should have known this in college, I should have known it in grad school, I should have known it in medical school. Nowhere was I ever taught this. And I don't know about you, but that's a bit of a curious thing. We should know more about gratitude because there's so much good that comes out of it. Let's start with a few things that Dr. Emmons has covered in his research that still amaze me to this day. People who practice gratitude see up to a 25% rise in happiness. Whoa. That's medication level change without using medication. Another one that really got my attention, just three weeks of gratitude journaling, writing down things that you're grateful for, especially at night, in the evening, improves sleep, energy, and mood, according to the research. Another amazing point that you should know is that grateful people have lower inflammation in their bodies, stronger immune function, and healthier hearts. I don't know about you, but I would like lower inflammation. I would prefer to have a stronger immune system, and oh heck yeah, I want my heart to be healthy. Who knew that the practice of gratitude could improve all three? And when you zoom out over time, gratitude even shows up to slow aging and to give us longer lives. Why? Because the research shows that gratitude lowers chronic stress, one of the major drivers of disease. Wow! So if you've ever wondered whether gratitude actually makes a difference, it does. Pick up this book, Thanks, by Dr. Robert Emmons. And hey, Dr. Emmons, I don't know where you are right now, but thank you. Thank you for writing this book. Because this is the stuff that we need to know, because we can put it into practice. Let's bring it down to earth. Imagine yourself on a Saturday morning, this morning. Maybe with a cup of coffee, maybe you're in your car, maybe you're still in bed, just trying to shake off the week, trying to catch up with yourself. Instead of driving straight into your to-do list today or replaying yesterday's stress, I want you to try this. Pause. Take one breath. Do it right now. Yeah, with a slow exhale, always make sure the exhale is longer than the inhale when you do these deep breaths. Yeah. Pause, take one deep breath and ask, what's one small steady, true thing I am grateful for right now? Not the big dramatic things, not the things that you should be grateful for, just one small tiny, steady, true thing that you're grateful for right now. Maybe it's a quiet moment. Maybe it's a warm room. The fact that you made it through the week. That you had somebody check up on you. Or the strength you didn't even know you had until something tested you this week. I want you to name it, whatever that is. I want you to feel it, whatever you're grateful for. And I want you to let it land. Name it, feel it, and let it land. Think about that for a second. Who are you grateful for? What are you grateful for? Just think. You'll notice if you're doing that, that your shoulders drop. You'll notice that your breath slows, it opens up, your mind softens when you start thinking that way. And that's because gratitude is doing exactly what the science has figured out that it does. All week long, your stress systems, the HPA axis that we talked about, remember? Hypothalamus, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals. That's an axis in your body, and it's driving all day long. Cortisol, adrenaline, they've been firing through the system, and you don't even realize it. Every single day this week, your HPA access has been driving in this cortisol, adrenaline, and you've been getting it done. By Saturday, that system, it's a bit tired. Your nervous system is a little afraid, and that's why you can sometimes feel the weight of a week at the end of a long week. Now, here's the magic. You know what interrupts that process? Gratitude. Gratitude interrupts the HPA axis, it interrupts the stress response. Why? Because it hits the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve in your brain, the one that's associated with calm. It's like the body's calm switch, this vagus nerve runs through the whole body. Instantly, when the vagus nerve is contacted, your mind starts to relax, it starts to clear up, and gratitude will bring blood flow back to parts of your brain that need it. Your prefrontal cortex, the brain CEO starts relaxing, you make better decisions, you start thinking like yourself again, the amygdala cools off. Remember the amygdala threat center, it cools off, it relaxes, and you come back to the present moment. Gratitude sets you up for deeper sleep tonight. Emma's found that even one moment of gratitude before bed increases your slow wave sleep. That's the deep sleep that repairs your body. Now that's real self-care. Who knew? I'm asking you, did you know that gratitude did all this? My goodness. Self-care Saturday in gratitude. Not self-indulgence, not escapism, just repair. One of my favorite one of my favorite poems, Melody Beattie. She's no longer with us. God rest her soul. She had a great poem, and the line that I love in it starts like this: Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. Wow. I got that by the way as a present from my mom this summer. She, I don't know how she found it, but she found this incredible uh poster that literally had these words: gratitude unlocking the fullness of life and turning what you have into enough and more. Because you see, my friend, self-care is really about returning to enough and feeling full again. Maybe you don't have everything you want, maybe it didn't work out. But guess what? You can always return to yourself and feel full and more because you're grateful. Gratitude, it just takes you there. So at some point today, when something hits you that might bother you or you might feel away about it, I want you to remember to pause and ask, what's one small thing? One tiny thing, one person, one place, one thing that I'm grateful for today. Maybe the sun is shining where you are. Maybe the cool air is blowing on your skin. Maybe you have a cup of tea in front of you. Let your body and mind register that and then get reset. So here's your affirmation. Today I let gratitude restore me. Mind, body, and soul. I'm giving it permission to do that. Today, I let gratitude restore me. Mind, body, and soul. I'm giving it the permission to do that. This is Dr. Derek Sweet. Thank you so much for listening to me. This week, we've been covering Dr. Robert Emmons' book, Thanks, and we have been exploring gratitude. You are in the sweet spot, and this is Gratitude Unlocked. I'll see you tomorrow for Slowdown Sunday, and we're blending astrophysics, mindfulness, a little ancient wisdom. We go a little wild on Sunday to explore gratitude and slowing down, how stillness might create some clarity, how it might create meaning and a space for purpose and breath. Amen. Alright. If I didn't say it, I'm grateful for you. If I didn't say it, I'm thankful for you. And if I didn't say it, I love you. This is Dr. Derek Sweet.