Your Friday Five: Why Gratitude Matters More Than Protein and Fiber

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Transcript

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Welcome back to another, your Friday five. Today I just wanted to make a quick comment about the practice of gratitude and the evidence based behind it. So I came across a post the other day from a friend of mine and she had listed all these different reasons that practicing gratitude, how there was a big evidence based behind it and just two really stood out to me. So there, there were a lot of different things, but one of them from a mental health standpoint that things like you can have a reduction in anxiety and depression by up to 16%. Which just, that's significant, right? That's one out of five. Let's round it up to 20, right? Let's say that's kind of one out of five that would improve. Th that's again, that, that's a significant thing. And the things, for example, from like a physical health standpoint, that blood pressure and inflammation, they can go down by, by up to 7%. And again, there were other numbers, but these are just ones that stuck with me. And you know, I had this moment. Because I have been here recently. I'm on the mend. I'm feeling better, but I don't know, I, I don't know if I sound a little bit congested, but I definitely am as I'm recording this and I had this moment where I, for four days have sat out my walks, which is. Yeah, that's, that's a hundred years in my world because I, I normally always do my walk and something real, like I really have to feel bad to not do it. I was favoring and chilling and you know, now I have all the congestion, all the things, and I realized I am so grateful that I think tomorrow I'm gonna be able to get back to my plan, get back to the walk, get back to feeling better. I'm. I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for the cold water that I get to drink. I'm so grateful for the life that I have. I mean, I just go on and on and I find quite often it's so easy to go into that negative land. I don't have enough time. I'm too busy. Um, you know, all the things that we tell ourselves, and then I realize a lot of that just really doesn't matter. When we think about the things that we're actually grateful for and what actually matters. I have a friend right now that's going through cancer treatment and. It's devastating to see. It's devastating and I know that we all know friends and you know, a lot. It's been a big year actually with a lot of friends going through things, and it really, first of all, you're holding this space for them. I know. No, no other way to explain it. One of my friends went into surgery here recently and. I was working that day, but I found at the edge of the, I'm about to cry as I say this. Well, at the end of the day, I was so emotional when the husband texted me, Hey, she's out. She's doing okay. And what I realized was like, I was like, like praying and sending good energy and I had so much of that space going to that person, and I was so. I was so grateful that I even had a friend that I cared that much about. You know what I mean? I was thinking, wow, I, that's how much I love this friend, that I'm so worried for her, and I'm so grateful that I have that love for my husband and the friend, and that I have the ability to walk. And so here's the thing. I think we need this moment every so often because we get so. In the pits with things that don't matter. And I'm gonna put something in this category of things that absolutely don't, do not ever matter in your life. Again, your body shape, your body shape and size, it does not matter. So I get from a practical standpoint of, well, I can't amb it in the world the way I want to do things like that. Fine. But you are not, again, allowed to hold yourself back from, well, I'm not gonna wear certain clothes or I'm not gonna do certain things. You have to live your life. It doesn't matter on your deathbed, no one's gonna be like, you know what? I remember that she was overweight. no one, they're gonna remember that. Whew. They're gonna remember that you were the friend that talked to them every single day when they were going through that, that showed up for them, that cared about them. That's what they're gonna remember, right? So from this gratitude standpoint, literally you. Writing these things down, telling yourself these three things in the morning or the three things at night, instead of saying, well, how, how shitty was today and I'm so tired, da, da, da. You think about what are those three things that I'm grateful for right now? As I'm recording this, I'm having a stove on and I'm gonna be boiling some eggs. I'm so grateful. I have so many things in the house right now that are amazing. Not everybody in the world right now has this. There are wars going on, and again, I'm not trying to make this really negative, I'm just, I'm saying that I think we just get so tunnel vision on protein and fiber and things like that, that we lose perspective on why we're doing it. You are doing these things so that you can love your friends the best so that you can be there for your kids so that you can make a difference in the world, that you can fight for the beliefs and things that you think are right. That's why you're doing this work. You're doing it for your health and so that you can be a good human and you can do things that move the world forward and that you can experience life and you can experience joy and you can experience your spirituality if that's important to you. That's why you're doing this stuff. So I wanna remind you to just take a moment today for some gratitude. What are the very simple, basic things that you're grateful for? Make it a five senses. What can I see that I'm grateful for? What can I hear that I'm grateful for? What can I taste that I'm grateful for? What can I touch that I'm grateful for? Go through all those senses that you have that is gonna make you really mindful, it's gonna bring you into the present moment. It's gonna reduce your stress. It's gonna help you to enjoy what you have. Remember, whenever we're unsatisfied, it's a past and a future problem. It's not usually right in the moment. Because when, when we're, we're wanting things that we can't have, bodies, that we can't have financial things, that we are not in a position to have, all those kind of things. But all of us usually have a lot, all of us are rich in some capacity. And just coming back to that, I just wanted to come to that because I feel like just all the time it's like, or maybe it's just me. I feel like sometimes we're just like a protein, protein, protein. And yes. And. A lot of these other things matter much more. Alright, so I'm gonna get off of here. Today was a little bit of a different episode, but I hope that you have a moment of gratitude. Just pause this right now. Five sense is what am I grateful for, and go from there. Alright, I hope you have an amazing weekend and I'll see you Monday all.