Gratitude is not only good for the soul but also for our health!
As we dive into the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’ll talk about the incredible power of gratitude. It's not just a warm fuzzy feeling; it's a game-changer for our health!
Join us in this week's Health Bite episode as we unpack the wonders of gratitude, its physical and mental health benefits, and practical tips to make it a part of your daily routine.
This podcast episode discusses the importance of gratitude and how it can benefit our physical and mental health.
Dr. Adrienne Youdim shares personal experiences of gratitude and emphasizes the need to practice gratitude during difficult times.
The episode also explores the impact of gratitude on the brain, including increased feelings of joy and optimism.
Additionally, the podcast highlights how gratitude can lead to healthier behaviors, such as improved nutrition.
And, of course, Dr. Adrienne Youdim be sharing a personal gratitude anecdote.
What You’ll Learn From this Episode:
- Learn about the benefits of practicing gratitude for physical and mental health and well-being.
- Develop practical strategies for implementing a gratitude practice in your daily life.
- Find out how engaging in gratitude can positively impact those in need during difficult times.
- Learn about the importance of shifting from guilt to gratitude and how it opens our hearts to compassion and support for others.
“Engaging in a gratitude practice strengthens the immune system - imagine - less colds in those who are grateful!” - Dr. Adrienne Youdim
Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim
3 Ways to Get More From Adrienne
1. Subscribe to our Newsletter. Subscribe Now and get the 5 Bites to Fasttrack your Health and Wellbeing https://dradrienneyoudim.com/newsletter/
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It is Thanksgiving week and it seems apt that we talk about gratitude. Gratitude is a practice that allows us to show appreciation for the things that are meaningful and valuable in our lives and Like all things that we discuss on this podcast, engaging in gratitude has benefits to our health.
On this week's episode we are going to talk about gratitude, the benefits to our physical and mental health and wellbeing as well as practical strategies on how to implement a gratitude practice. Given where we are right now, I am also going to discuss the importance of engaging in gratitude during difficult times and how it can positively impact those in need. All of this plus my personal anecdote of the gratitude that came into my life this week.
Welcome back to Healthbite, I'm your host Dr Adrienne Youdim. I am triple board certified as an internist, obesity medicine and physician nutrition specialist and I help people redefine nutrition to include not only the food that we eat well but all the ways we can nourish ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. And this week we are talking about the nourishing effects of gratitude.
I am personally feeling deeply thankful this week. I was asked to return to Rancho la Puerta this week to teach some workshops on health and nutrition. As I have shared this was a challenging month for me and the opportunity to head out to the ranch was truly a gift. I spent the week connecting with nature, moving my body, managing my consumption of all things- food, content, news, getting much-needed rest and most importantly engaging with the community.
I was blessed to meet so many kind-hearted and like-minded souls. And the effects were immeasurable to my mind and body. I returned from a week at the ranch feeling grateful. Grateful for my work, grateful for my family, grateful for the practices that ground me, grateful for connection and community, all the while aware of what is still going on in the world around me. And we will talk about that too.
So, engaging in a gratitude practice does not only feel good but it carries so many health benefits.
- Mental health
- Practicing gratitude for the good in our lives helps us cultivate and embrace positive emotions and in doing so helps us shift our mindset to one that supports greater positivity and joy. And so it has been shown that engaging in a gratitude practice helps us to cultivate feelings of optimism and in doing so enhances our ability to experience greater joy and pleasure.
Its kind of remarkable if you think about it. We are often trying to accumulate pleasure right? Searching for happiness and in doing so we often miss what is under our nose. So what we are saying here is instead of searching our there for more lets slow down and savor what is already here.
- And so it should not be a surprise to hear that people who practice gratitude do report greater optimism, joy and positivity and this translates into greater goal attainment, and decreased anxiety and depression. And I actually offer this to my patients. As a physician I support the use of antidepressants when needed. But we can enhance the effects of these tools by engaging in mind body practices like gratitude.
- It has been shown that engaging in gratitude enhanced the effects of altruism - being good and charitable to others - which has its own benefits. In one study, participants were given cash and asked what they would do with money they were given all the while having their brains scanned by MRI. Participants who offered to give the money away to charity had greater blood flow to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a key region for reward in the brain, as compared to those who opted to keep the money for themselves. In a follow up study, participants were advised to keep a nightly gratitude journaling practice for 2 weeks and were shown to have greater gains in blood flow and brain activation when scanned as compared to those who were advised to journal without any emphasis on gratitude.
- Research has also shows that grateful people tend to engage in healthy activities such as focusing on nutrition. “We have found that getting people to express gratitude could help them work toward healthier eating behaviors, like more fruits and vegetables and less junk food, one researcher noted showing that even Teens who expressed gratitude reported healthier eating behavior over time compared to those who just listed their activities which leads us to the physical health benefits of gratitude.
- Physical Health
- Engaging in a gratitude practice has been shown to strengthen the immune system - imagine - less colds in those who are grateful! And, and this one is not surprising to me, gratitude has also been shown to improve sleep patterns. Resulting in both greater subjective sleep quality, longer sleep duration, less sleep latency (meaning trouble falling asleep) and as a result reduced daytime dysfunction. When nearly 30% of the population reports insomnia this relationship seems really impotant tight now. The relationship between gratitude and sleep variables seemed to be mediated by more positive pre-sleep cognitions and less negative pre-sleep cognitions. So you know that means less negative ruminations and more positive thoughts. Now let me ask you, how many of you find that bedtime is when you mind gets flooded with all the problems in the world including your own? It makes sense that when we finally slow down we create space for ruminations and that impacts our mood and our sleep. Here is an antidote to that.
- And finally, Research published in the last decade has shown that grateful people have fewer health complaints like headaches, digestive issues, respiratory infections, runny noses, dizziness, and again sleep problems. It appears that practicing gratitude could also help to alleviate the common yet non-specific health problems that plague all of us from time to time. In one study, a group of college students who wrote about things they were grateful for once per week for 10 weeks reported fewer physical symptoms (such as headaches, shortness of breath, sore muscles, and nausea) compared to two other control groups.
- Other benefits to health include reduced pain. Brain centers that are involved in gratitude are near the mu opioid pain receptors and whether these benefits are subjective or actually mediated in the brain remains to be seen. Regardless, the effects are present.
Finally, Physiological changes associated with gratitude include reduced blood pressure, heart rate variability and increase in vagal tone, which are parameters of increased parasympathetic or the rest and relax part of our nervous system not to mention that elevated blood pressure and heart rate are risk factors for heart disease. How cool it that- gratitude softens our hearts emotionally and physiologically!
Last but not least, gratitude practices lead to Better Relationships. That makes sense right. Saying thank you, acknowledging each other makes us feel seen, heard, appreciated and that is good for our relationships! It is proven that engaging in gratitude results in
- Stronger social connections
- Better communication within relationships
- feeling less lonely and isolated.
So, How to Practice Gratitude
- Start by Observing
- Where are moments of gratitude that you may be missing, not seeing or acknowledging in your life? Being more aware is the first step.
- How about when you do notice the good- how do you notice? Do you really pause and take in the goodness? How do you say thank you when you do? is it a hasty thank you? Or is it a heartfelt one.
- So Pause - take a moment to pause. Consider even closing your eyes and taking a deep breath in the presence of good. Different than a hasty thank you I imagine.
- Savor- observing, acknowledging and pausing is really a practice of savoring. We often dont take time to savor what is good. I always think of my morning coffee. How do you savor your coffee or favorite meal or favorite dessert. Doesnt chocolate taste better when we savor? How often do we mindless eat and miss the opportunity to truly taste and enjoy. So to it is with all the good in our lives. Savoring is a way to cultivate gratitude.
- You can do this by naming, using your Senses and Feeling into your Body- WHat is the experience, how do you experience it, where do you feel it in your body? Name it. Notice it in your body. Take in the feeling of gratitude wholly. How does that feel?
- Share and Connect - as I mentioned expressing gratitude can strengthen relationships. So the next time your partner, friend or family member does something you appreciate, acknowledge it, be sure to let them know and use it as a way to connect more fully with the people in your life.
- Use the Right Words - I have shared on this podcast my love of words. As a speaker and an author I know how important words are in conveying a message in a succinct and deliberate way. Studies show that those who use words like gifts, giver, blessings, fortune, and abundance reinforces the sentiment around these words for the user. Just naming in the right way and with the right words can cultivate greater gratitude.
- Use Reminders - visual reminders like Post it notes, pictures of people you value, Mantras or phrases that resonate are all great ways to remind us of gratitude. And trust me, We all need reminders.
- Finally consider a regular practice. I love Journaling. If you chose to journal. create a routine like every morning when you wake up or at night before you sleep. Both are a great alternative to our phone habit and can have a lasing effect of positivity on your day or improvement in your sleep.Be specific - name the good in detail. Really explore it fully using the right words and senses as we have discussed.
- Finally, Do not feel the need for something to be grandiose to be worthy, small things matter, sometimes small things matter the most.Other ways to consider are keeping a gratitude jar- this is a great practice to do as a family or with your kids. I also love the idea of daily thank you notes. I spent a month sending one email per day to someone I appreciated or loved thanking them for something specific that was done. It is such a beautiful way to benefit the giver and receiver.
And last but not least, I want to address what feels like the elephant in the room. How do we practice gratitude in a time when there is so much suffering? There is guilt. But let me remind you that guilt is a wasted emotion and takes us away from action. If you think about it, it is also a selfish emotion, it redirects the focus back on ourselves. Alternatively, if we relish our privilege and offer gratitude for what we have it opens our hearts to those who do not. It allows us to ask, how can we pay this forward, it allows us to embrace each other with greater compassion, love, kindness. Shiting frim guilt to gratitude allows us to be open-hearted to those who need us. We can ask, how can we we hold space, how can we offer compassion, how can we advocate for others and support those in need? These questions never come from places of guilt or shame, they come from gratitude. From within, from first holding close and acknowledging all that we appreciate and hold dear. It starts with gratitude.
Wishing you all a very happy thanksgiving with peace and gratitude in your hearts. And with that a thank you to all of you for being here, for listening to my words and my heart. I am grateful for you!
Please share this episode with someone you love and I look forward to seeing you here again next week on HealthBite.