salty bake club

Gratitude, Serotonin, And Cake

• sara grace • Season 1

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Here is where you get in touch. Work with me, share your experience or requests > this is how to reach me. Love, - Sara

A near-contraction scare, a partner who banned me from the kitchen, and a table of twenty strangers-turned-friends shaped a week that rewired how I think about gratitude, control, and care. From our yoga loft with cake in hand, I unpack the hidden science beneath a warm holiday: why witnessing gratitude—not just giving or receiving it—can deliver a powerful serotonin boost, and how that insight can quietly shift your mood, your relationships, and your daily rituals.

We start with a candid Thanksgiving recap: the pressure of third-trimester limits colliding with a host’s perfectionism, the moment I finally handed over the reins, and the shock of everything running smoother when I let go. That softness sets the stage for a practice you can feel, not just think about. I share how a classic gratitude round at the table dissolved awkwardness and replaced it with presence, and what changes when you try to hold people in the fullness of their stories—coworkers, friends, even yourself—before reacting to the friction of the moment.

Then we zoom into the brain. Drawing from notes in my Yin Yoga training manual and a memorable Huberman insight, we explore serotonin as the steady-state happiness chemical that gratitude can unlock. The twist: being a witness to gratitude often delivers the biggest lift. This means you can tune your attention—not your schedule—to feel better. I use that lens to explain the tiny surprises and rituals I’m building into the new Yin training, each one designed to make care visible and easy to notice. The extra mile isn’t about spectacle; it’s about creating conditions where kindness is unmistakable.

You’ll leave with a gentle weekly assignment: walk with open eyes, witness one act of gratitude each day, name it in your body, and if you can, be the person who shows up first. For a sweet assist, yes, there’s cake—chocolate and peanut butter do nudge serotonin—but the real dessert is the chemistry of kindness. If this resonates, tap follow, share it with someone who could use a lift, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.

Speaker:

Welcome my loves to a brand new episode of the Salty Bake Club with a very different backdrop. Yes, I'm not at home. Yes, I'm not in my recording studio. I am currently at our yoga loft because I spent all the days, all the hours here. I have been recording for our 500-hour yoga teacher training so many lessons, so many hours, and my podcast mic is here because of that. And out of pure laziness, I just could not be bothered to bring it back home and back here. So this is what you get. But I did bring cake and nothing less than my famous Thanksgiving cake. This is the last piece. I had to save it from my guests just to give you a piece of it. So let's get into a little bit of a transitional episode. I hope this is not gonna be a chaos episode once again, but this is what you get. Me, my unfiltered, raw, real state of mind. Let me start with thank you for being here. My God Bake Club. So many things have happened last week that I wanted to talk about. But let's start with a little bit of rewinding my uh Thanksgiving. Last episode was about Thanksgiving, about gratitude, and I kind of want to build upon that and also give you a little bit of an insight on how my party was because I loved it. And this cake is so divine. Yes, I'm gonna tag the original recipe, but I changed it so much so that I'm not sure if I could call it my own. Anyway, I'm gonna tag the original recipe for you. And if you want to have the changes, I'm gonna give them to you as soon as I have my web with all the recipes up. Now a recap. If you haven't listened to the last episode yet, go do that. If you don't want to do that, I told you that I'm gonna have 20 people over at my place, or I should say our place, because really it has turned into not only my Thanksgiving celebration, but our little tradition. I shared this day and more than half of the tasks with my beautiful Min. To start there, the days before I faced the first real physical restrictions due to stress and pregnancy, like the combination of stress and pregnancy. Apparently, it's it's not uh, you know, uh, it's a thing. And you should be mindful of that. And with my fiery nature, I sometimes am not. So now being the in the third trimester, my body is giving me new boundaries that I apparently have to live by. This obviously comes in very uncomfortable timing because just picture that. The days before, I'm running a trazillion errands to design the menu cards, get them from the printer, have the decoration ready, buy more glasses because we don't have enough, do all the grocery stopping, blah blah blah. And yes, I am a yoga teacher, but I can get a little carried away with my pace. And I might have made it a habit to be frickin' efficient. So my body just didn't like the pace that I was rolling with. And at some point I had what felt like actual contractions in my lower belly. And that's not a good thing. I am 31 weeks pregnant now. You don't want to have that. But don't you worry about me, all is fine. Oh god, I wish I could say I just listened to my body and took it slower. But I was like, no, I have things to get done. So a man literally banned me to the couch, and he's like, You are banned from the kitchen, and hereby I offload any heavy duty from you. Which I do have some control issues, and I'm not gonna say that was easy, but you know what? Such a trust learning curve. He pulled through with it. I didn't do any of the cooking. And I'm gonna show you our menu cards here. We had quite a lot of dishes. Except for the baking, of course. I would never let go of the baking. The entire day of Thanksgiving and the day before, I was able to really relax a little bit more due to the generosity of my man, and I mean the generosity in effort and devotion in pulling through, in action steps, in execution that he so embodies. I don't want to trail away in just telling you how lucky I am, which I am. But the actual heartfelt learning was that it all went so much smoother than the I don't know, 12 years that I did all those tasks. I mean, the time schedule, the execution, the very obvious lack of burning any skin, which usually happened when I tried to make the caramel. It all went so much better than when I was in control. So yeah, hardcore learning for me. And the actual Thanksgiving dinner was just spectacular. I'm gonna show you some photos, I'm gonna pop them up here on the video. And here is what really stood out there was a bunch of people gathered around a long table, and everybody was so warm, so welcoming, and so open-hearted with each other, even though many of them didn't know each other. But the flow of conversation and the spirit of that group was so, so joyful. And we did one of those very classical rounds of everybody had to say something that they were deeply grateful for. And once again, I want to put emphasis on that gratitude is not just a thought, it is a feeling. So a body sensation, something that reaches really cellular deeply into your body, mind, physics, heart, matter, whatever that you are grateful for. And I felt so blessed in this moment because I had the privilege of knowing the backstory of each of them. And when everybody shared something from their heart or a little bracket of their story, I all of a sudden was able to see these people in their fullness, in their the entirety of their story. Like literally, I think our brain is not able to keep in mind that the people in front of you have such rich, wholehearted, multifaceted, complex stories all the time. I mean, think of your coworker. Think of when he or she annoys you with another email or the way she hands out a task over to you. Are you able to remember in that very moment that this person is a single mom or has lived through a very rough patch of not being able to find good housing for her children or get a kindergarten space, or maybe he or she just went through a chapter of her life where grief was really there? What I want to say is that so often we see the people for what feelings we associate with them in that moment and what projection we stream onto them rather than having their full story in mind. And that evening was such a miraculous reminder of that because having a crowd full of 20 people, just a reminder, that is a lot. And being able to see and witness and be in awe of so many stories from so many people, it struck such a deep level of kindness and gratitude within me. My serotonin went through the roof. And as a matter of fact, again, I'm here at our Treason Stories Yoga Loft. This is such a beautiful space, little promo for it. And on the day when this podcast is gonna be released, my next yin training will start. And I was zapping through the pages of the manual of this yin training when I found this little page about neuromodulators. And I was reminded back in the days 2020 when we all were big Huberman lab fans, and Mr. Brain Daddy Huberman taught me something about serotonin that stuck. And I love that fact so much that I put it down in the Yin Yoga Teacher manual. So, just as a recap, serotonin is that neurotransmitter, neuromodulator hormone that makes you feel all happy and yummy. When you have a balanced level of serotonin in your bloodstream, in your brain, then you feel very content, very happy. And funny enough, gratitude triggers a release of serotonin in your brain. How cool is that? I mean, feeling the body sensation of gratitude makes you happy. Like this is the scientific proof for what we already know happens. Last episode I suggested to make it a ritual, right? Like I do these Thanksgiving celebrations every year, but make it a ritual to practice gratitude, not as a thought, but as a body sensation every day, every week at least. And you will make yourself happier. Now here comes the really cool part. Unfortunately, I don't remember what study Huberman was quoting from, but apparently they did a study on people where they measured the serotonin release in their brains under different circumstances. Circumstance number one was feeling grateful for something. And they measured the serotonin release in that scenario. Scenario number two was receiving gratitude. Like somebody is saying thank you and being thankful to you. And once again, they measured the serotonin release in that scenario. And the third one was when people were witnessing a scenario that they were not part of, where people were showcasing and experiencing gratitude. And guess what? When you were the witnesser, but not a participant, that triggered the highest serotonin release of all our scenarios. Isn't that so cool? That our bodies are actually responding so so well to things where we don't even have to be a part of, we don't even have to be giving or receiving gratitude. We only have to witness it. So if we open our eyes and walk through this world more consciously, I want to tie back to my Thanksgiving experience. If we walk through this world, witnessing the people around us in the entirety of themselves, of their complexity. If we keep in mind their stories, their heartaches, but then also share their joy and be very mindful and observing of that. That literally changes our brain chemistry. I am just in awe of that. Another side note, chocolate also triggers the release of serotonin, so this chocolate peanut butter cake might be a second feel-good option. I can simply not stop eating this cake and talking about this cake, seriously. Even my guests, the ones that had joined multiple years of this Thanksgiving celebration, who have had the same cake year over year, said this one was another level. Here is your little wholehearted homework of kindness for this upcoming week. Walk through the world with open eyes. See the people in their complexity and in the fullness of their story. Practice and be open to witness gratitude and give more. As a cherry on top, be one of those people who are so generous in their energy resources, in showing up for others, like my man did for me. I believe, especially right now, with all that is going on in the world, we need more people like that. We need more people who focus on kindness and generosity than the ones who simply replicate fear, hold back, and cave in in that darkness that life can also pull upon us. How that shows up for me is as I said, when this episode airs, it's gonna be the day where my yin training starts, and I just prepared so many tiny little surprises, like little notes in our yoga temple here, little rituals for my trainees, small interactive inclusions that have never been in a yin training before. That genuinely make me so excited about it. I really believe in going the extra mile for something that you stand behind. And it might be the same curating experiences like this Thanksgiving celebration and this yin training. I genuinely believe we need more people that go the extra mile to make an experience magical for others. Not only the people, but the world. We'll be so deeply grateful for that. So with that, I'm gonna release you into the days ahead. As I said, I'm gonna tag Sally's Baking Addiction chocolate cake recipe. That I changed a lot, and the peanut butter but buttercream is my creation. But feel free to head over to Sally's website. It is so moist and fluffy, and that could be your very personal next serotonin release trigger. Or you go practice, receive, or witness gratitude. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. Honestly, I'm a little bit on the edge of my resources, but maternity leave is gonna start early next week. So, in very unyogic manner, I tried to cramp in all the tasks that I still had to do into this week so that this little self-employed yoga teacher could peacefully make her maternity leave without any to-dos that that would still occupy my mind. I guess we could do another pregnancy episode in celebration of that next week. If you want to do that, please send me your questions, send me whatever you want to know. There's nothing too silly, there is nothing too bold. I always love to hear from you. Ooh, how you also could help me in this podcast. Share it, like it, follow it, make a comment, and most importantly, subscribe. I'm your host, Sara Grace, and I cannot wait to hang out again next week. Thank you. I love you.