The Science of Gratitude

Today’s thanksgiving and between the turkey, family, and football… how grateful are you feeling?

Did you know that gratitude has some serious scientific benefits?

Scientific studies have proven that there are several positive outcomes from cultivating an attitude of gratitude, including benefits that can transform your physical and emotional health.

In this episode, Kara and Jack Dennison discuss how gratitude has changed their lives.

In this episode, you can expect Jack and Kara to talk about:

• What they are both thankful for this Thanksgiving
• How gratitude has played a major part in both of their transformations.
• The power of daily gratitude and its many scientific benefits

Want to watch this episode instead of listening? 

Click here: https://youtu.be/XKvS-poz5dY

Sponsor: Optimized Career Solutions at www.optimizedcareersolutions.com  If you're ready for a transformation in your career, but not sure how to take that next step, we want you to learn the strategies and gain the support every high achiever needs to feel empowered in their career. Be confident in your job search and schedule your free consultation with Kara and Jack at https://getstarted.optimizedcareersolutions.com

About Kara: Kara is the CEO of Optimized Career Solutions, an Executive Career and Leadership Coach and a Forbes Contributor. She is a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) who has spent her career as a Corporate Recruiting Leader, working closely with decision-makers. Throughout her career, Kara has personally reviewed over 300,000 resumes. Through her executive coaching programs, she has helped thousands of professionals land their dream jobs and has been responsible for negotiating over $10 million in salary increases over the last few years.

About Jack: Jack is the COO of Optimized Career Solutions, an Executive Career Coach, and comes from a life coaching, personal training, and philosophy background. As the Accountability and Mindset Coach in their coaching program, Jack is passionate about helping high achievers and leaders live impactful lives by shifting mindsets, gaining personal accountability, and achieving personal and professional wins that lead to major life transformations. As a high ticket sales closer, Jack has sold over $1M in high ticket sales in under 3 years.

Email – thedennisondownload@gmail.com

Website – https://optimizedcareersolutions.com/

Kara LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/karadennisonsphr/

Jack LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackrdennison/ 

Instagram - @karadennisonsphr and @jackrdennison 

Tiktok - @karadennisonsphr

Transcript

I love motivation but what I love more than motivation is discipline and

consistency because when I'm consistent and when I'm disciplined I see the

result of that consistency and discipline and I get motivated in the moment to continue

yeah as opposed to let me get some motivation to just get this one thing

done and then I'm spent because I went to a negative place to get it done yeah

and then then you're almost setting yourself back because you you kind of don't like yourself that much afterwards

you know because you beat yourself up the whole way you know

welcome back to the Denison download and Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving everybody I hope that you are enjoying a

wonderful holiday with your friends your family or uh maybe just yourself I don't

know but whatever you're doing I hope that it's a great one maybe there's a little turkey with you though hopefully a little bit I hope so

what's your favorite Thanksgiving side uh my favorite is mashed potatoes oh

it's a good one you need yours it's always been mashed potatoes but I

like the mashed potatoes you gotta have a gravy core you know so it's like a

gravy volcano you know okay and then I like the turkey and the stuffing those three Classics oh that's what makes a

Thanksgiving for me I like to do a carb casserole where I get uh you get the mashed potatoes you get the stuffing and

then you get maybe a mac and cheese and then you've got all three of those uh maybe even topped out with a little bit

of cranberry yes I said cranberry I don't know if you're not a cranberry lover like me that's okay

um can or fresh I am a can I don't like that why is the

can so good I want The Ridges I want the slices so good it just it's as the kids say it

slaps harder it does it's Labs I want me again any

other time of the year I don't want canned cranberry sauce but like if I do not have a can on Thanksgiving it just

doesn't make it I don't know someone's going to the store

well since it's Thanksgiving we are grateful we are super grateful

especially this year because you know it's been a tough year and what are you

grateful for this today on Thanksgiving oh man so many things uh first and

foremost your health the fact that you're here uh and you are as healthy as you ever been uh staring back at me that

uh that is a gift that I will take every single day oh my good blush I know I I'm

really just grateful that we got here it has been a long road and I'm thankful for uh you and I'm thankful for our team

and I'm thankful for just all the lessons that we learned this year it's it's been a wild ride huh yeah we could

uh definitely write a book or two well with all these lessons uh got some lessons stacked in the corner here yeah

or maybe start a podcast I don't know oh yeah yeah I think we did that this

year yeah oh we're doing that now got it got it so since it's Thanksgiving which is uh I

gotta be honest it's one of my favorite holidays um don't get me wrong I love me some Christmas I love me some of my birthday

um but I love Thanksgiving and here's the reason why is because Thanksgiving is one of those holidays

right that it always falls on a Thursday so you're almost guaranteed to have a long weekend for the most part um some

years I didn't depending on retail or where I worked but um you're almost guaranteed to have a long

weekend you're almost guaranteed to have a great meal right depending on where you are and it's usually with people that you

love right your friends your family and there's no pressure to go out and buy all these presents right like I feel

like sometimes Christmas uh your birthday there's like this pressure to

perform make sure you get the right present make sure that you hit the deals all this other stuff I know there's Black Friday and and stuff afterwards

but Thanksgiving is just showing up cooking a meal spending time with family

and just being really freaking grateful and there's just something really magical about that for me

yeah and if you add in the just the community aspect that Thanksgiving

typically comes in because everybody's you know typically making food all day long that day and you get a lot of great

conversations now those happen at other holidays as well um but uh typically uh for Thanksgiving

there's just a little bit more kind of thrown behind those dishes you know at the Christmas you might Outsource some

of the holiday food you might you bring in different types of foods Thanksgiving is typically a little bit more

traditional in terms of the way uh the way things go um and I've always enjoyed when

individuals take those traditional recipes and they just put a little twist on it and make it their own that's always fun yeah what I love about the

holiday is that it's all about being thankful right and so you know sometimes Christmas it's all like oh what am I

gonna get or what do I gotta get or what do I have to wrap up the year with or whatever but I just love the idea of a

whole holiday around being thankful I mean at least that's that's what I get from it or the the original

intention around it being for me and so that's what we want to talk about today

is gratitude right and gratitude has been a huge part of our

life especially recently especially this year and I did some research on gratitude

last year around Thanksgiving and found out that it has some incredible

research-based benefits oh I can't wait to hear I I only know from the benefits

that I've experienced myself because there have been points in my life where I've instituted uh gratitude practice

um to be able to really overcome some tough situations yeah so gratitude is

something that you and I uh take very seriously I think it's something that you and I practice

um if not daily uh hour by hour sometimes minute by minute

um and it really has had a huge impact on our life but I thought for this episode what

would be really fun uh is not only just sharing some of those research uh backs

benefits of gratitude for our listeners who either might already have a

gratitude practice might be thinking of a gratitude practice might be doing this on their day-to-day or maybe who don't

and might be finding themselves in a rut who might be today on Thanksgiving of all days right either listening to this

or who have just gone through Thanksgiving and might be thinking hey I've had a really crappy year maybe

their year has really sucked or maybe it's just been a neutral year whatever and they're looking for some transformation what I have found in my

life and I'll speak for you just in a second because I've seen it is a lot of our transformation stemmed from our

gratitude um I I don't want to say it's a Magic Bullet it's not that we've done a lot of

work for our transformation but I think gratitude and being grateful has been a key linchpin for most of our

transformation and so I mean I have 30 different uh benefits of gratitude right

now on a document that chose how powerful it is so I'm really

excited about this episode I really think in fact I'm grateful for it no

okay um but I am really grateful for it I'm really excited about it

um and I think that it is something that doesn't take a lot of time for people and as you practice it it becomes easier

and easier and easier and easier and easier to do um and the benefits are incredibly uh

beneficial yeah I I wholeheartedly agree um gratitude has pulled me out of some

very very deep uh Twisted kind of thought patterns and really it it's kind

of that uh spark if you will that allows the Catalyst of change because it allows

you to shift perspectives very quickly um very very very important topic but also one of my

favorites because it really has helped me personally yeah yeah well I want to do something fun I want

to do well it might be fun I think it's fun for us um I want to do the GQ six scale

um it's a little mini questionnaire it's literally called the Gratitude questionnaire it was

developed in 2002 by Nicola Emmons and sang and it's literally the most

frequently used assessment for gratitude it's six questions I figure since it's so short it's six questions you and I

could do it together on this podcast live we will explain it very slowly and

easily so that you can do it along with us if you want and it's literally just an assessment of how grateful you are

right in your day-to-day life uh what's really great about this is when we were

kind of researching this again this year uh this week we found that this self-reported

questionnaire measures um your tendency to recognize respond and experience gratitude and it also

measures the intensity frequency span and density of gratitude as an emotion so all of this is really

really uh just a self-assessment self-reflection uh I'm not going to know

your scores uh people who are listening if you decide to do this I'm not even going to know if you decide to do it or not so uh take it or leave it so Jack uh

for us you and I since we're going to do it uh the Gratitude the Gratitude questionnaire six item form or the gq6

is going to use a likert scale for those of you who don't know what a likert scale is it is a scale from one to seven

where one is strongly disagree seven is strongly agree and the scale goes one

strongly agree two disagree three slightly disagree four is neutral

five is slightly agree six is agree and seven is strongly agree now two of these

six questions are going to be reverse scored so I will give you instructions for scoring later

um after we go through this but let's go ahead and go through the questions so number one

I have so much in my life to be thankful for again we're going to write that one strongly agree all the way to seven or

I'm sorry one strongly disagree all the way to seven strongly agree I should

take some notes Here number one keep track of my score is I have so much in life to be thankful for

you got your answer I got my answer all right cool number two is if I had a list if I had to list everything I felt

grateful for it would be a very long list okay

number three when I look at the world I don't see

much to be grateful for again this is one strongly disagree to seven I

strongly agree again when I look at the world I don't see much to be grateful

for I feel there's a trick in here somewhere

that one is going to be one that is reverse scored okay four I am grateful

to a wide variety of people

five as I get older I find myself more able to appreciate the people events and

situations that have been part of my life history

six and this is the last reverse scored one long amounts of time can go by

before I feel grateful to something or someone

okay so I want you to look at your scores for number three and number six it's going to be reverse

scored so for instance number three I uh when I look at the world I don't see much to be grateful for if you scored a

one I strongly disagree you're actually going to give yourself seven points if

you scored yourself a two I disagree you're actually going to give

yourself six points three you're gonna give yourself five points and a four you're going to say the same and reverse

that the same way number six is going to be the same way okay so flip it around

so go ahead and do that now and then add up your total points

I think I broke this assessment did you what happened

what is a perfect score mean did you get a perfect score yes okay that's amazing

so you got 42. yeah so you got all sevens or ones for the reverse ones for

everything okay great that means that you are an extremely grateful person now I got a 39. that's still pretty good

right so that means that I'm fairly grateful right so I feel pretty

good about that um and you should still feel I mean you should feel great right how I mean do

you feel grateful for your score I mean no it's just a score but yeah I guess I

yeah just appreciative of being able to be here and knowing and sharing that's it yeah yeah so I

feel good about those scores because you and I have been in a rock solid gratitude practice for probably two to

three years now we started in 2020 at the least consistently since we've been

together yes but before you even met me I I've been doing this yeah so that would make sense that you have a 42

right yeah yeah and it would make sense that I have a 39 because I've been a consistent gratitude practice for at

least three years but some days some days or some days right so I would love

for you listener to just figure out where you are right and there's no

judgment you don't need to be at a 39 or a 42 you can be in the 20s or the low 30s or wherever you are on the scale you

could be at a six and it's okay you can be at a six and that's okay the reason is just to kind of give you an

eye-opening look at to where you fall on the Gratitude uh scale right

so I hope that was a little eye-opening what I love about that Jack is it kind

of gave me a little bit of an eye-opening look too of some areas right where I didn't write a perfect seven or

a perfect one that I could maybe work on right so I would love to kind of go into some

of the benefits of gratitude um that we have found when it comes to research and maybe we can do that after

the break but I'd love to hear um before we kind of go in since we're talking about our gratitude practice

what is a gratitude practice that you do [Music] um

or that we do that we can kind of share and then we'll kind of go into why and

some benefits and some stuff that our listeners can pick up after the break

if you're ready for a transformation and you're not sure where to start we suggest looking at where your money

comes from your career funds the rest of your life if you're feeling burnt out unfulfilled stagnant or unfulfilled in

your career that can easily start to bleed over to the rest of your life most high Achievers and leaders are

great at what they do but when it comes to finding that next level or a company that aligns with their values attempting

a job search can be frustrating at least and demoralizing at most the traditional job search of submitting your resume to

job boards only yields about a two percent ROI when it comes to interviews and it can leave job Seekers feeling

anxious rejected and with feelings of imposter syndrome and low self-worth at optimized career Solutions we want to

help transform your job search we help by giving you the branding on your resume and Linkedin profile that sets

you apart as the industry leader or professional you are but we don't stop there we give you the proven strategies

that Empower you to be the leader you are in your career within your job search by getting directly connected to

decision makers and teaching you how to tell your impactful story to leaders at companies you're excited to work with

book your free consultation either with myself or Jack at get

started.optimizecareersolutions.com on this recall we will dive deeper into your career goals with you and show you

how we can support you in achieving them without the frustration and rejection most job Seekers feel

we're going to also help you transform your mindset and gain invaluable skills that you'll use throughout the rest of

your career the first step to the next chapter in your career is just a couple clicks away book your free consultation

with us now at get started.optimizecareersolutions.com

all right I've got two okay go for it so the first one that I actually teach our

clients it's really just uh writing three things down every day uh that

you're grateful for at some point throughout that day uh I typically like to do this in the first half of the day

even in the morning if possible uh because it's always good to have those reminders as you go throughout the day

of things that you're grateful for really from this from the starting point of doing this uh we we start very small

really just small things that you're grateful for because really the practice of gratitude it's it's practice we're

not necessarily going to feel it right away and be able to be grateful for all these big things so just being grateful

for the home that you live in being grateful for uh the ability to have a hot meal at the end of the day being

able to be grateful that you're not exposed to the elements uh in the winter those types of things

really just anything that you can point to in life that you feel

makes you feel a whole centered aligned that that is

really what you want to be grateful for then as we start working on these things we can start going to bigger ideas we

can start becoming grateful for people we can become grateful for things we have in our life we can become grateful

for processes we're working on we can become grateful for so many different things uh for instance uh

I might not like the results of you know certain things that might pop up but I can be grateful for the opportunity just

to have that experience right I might not like the turnout of potential exam that I've got to take for

a certification right but the fact that I get to study that I get to be a better version of myself and I get to grow I

can be grateful for that right yeah yeah and I've noticed that when our clients really instantiate this and and

with their their job search they're able to better handle the ups and downs of

the roller coaster ride a lot easier um now the other gratitude practice that

I do also is is in a form of meditation uh where I Express gratitude for

a couple of things and it's also happens to be three um but I Express gratitude to usually

two very small things two very things that most people wouldn't

necessarily see uh fat grateful for um the coffee that I have in the morning

grateful for my pet that I have over here but then the third one is usually something very big it's usually being

grateful for something very moving and you want it to be very powerful and you want to feel that gratitude because if

you can actually feel that feeling then that actually shoots out to the rest of

the people in the universe and uh it what a thought that I wanted to share with everybody it's quantum entanglement

it's the idea that two cells or two particles that once upon a time were in

a similar place can be completely different opposites complete different shapes forms and still be quantumly

entangled in our universe and this is when people talk about synchronicity talk about the changing of

Consciousness those types of things that's where this comes from it's a collective we're all working together to

change the entire universe moving forward so in that meditative practice what you

do is you start out your gratitude practice um in that meditation being grateful for

two things that are tangible little here and then with the you kind of lost me on here so

I'm trying to get some sense here with the quantum entanglement thing you try and think of a much bigger

Collective thing that you're grateful for that might Encompass uh something larger than yourself like a community

um or whatever and you try and send energy out to that so that potentially

clients that you've connected with in the past people Etc that maybe you've connected with in

the past might be able to feel that and and get the benefits of that as well is that what you're trying to say yeah even current clients maybe family members who

necessarily needed people who are um going through a tough time those types of things like we can send out

that love that gratitude that feeling through that meditation to all those individuals and share that that feeling

with all those people and and that allows us to kind of connect with them

on a whole nother level okay I I love that so that's like

level 2.0 of uh gratitude right it's like feeling that energy and feeling

that feeling and sending it out right yeah I probably should have saved that one for the sequel that's okay that's

okay I love it I really do love it um so yeah those are some really great one

that's the Gratitude practices that you're doing every day and I didn't even know about that so that's kind of cool

um and two those are some really great practices that people can do immediately and start right write three things down

either at the beginning of your day with your cup of coffee at the end of your day before you're going to bed um or if you already have a meditation

practice and maybe you're not uh including uh meditation in it maybe thinking of three things and potentially

having two bees two smaller things right if you need to kick start your gratitude maybe you're groggy or falling asleep

and then having something a little bit larger I really like that um so for me my gratitude I started out

really when I was um partnered with someone else and he was doing three goal three gratitudes a

day and I really liked that because for me I like rituals I like routines I my

brain feels very soothed when I'm in a routine and so having a three goals free gratitude uh practice at the beginning

to get me into um a gratitude practice really worked well for my achievement type brain and

then as I started getting into it I started infusing gratitude into other

places in my life uh for instance at the time I was also losing weight because I

was changing my lifestyle around a little bit and I was looking in the mirror and I realized that

uh the words that I was saying to myself right my thoughts were not kind uh when I was losing weight because

instead of losing weight and loving myself more which I thought was gonna happen I started just finding more ways

to hate myself and so I wanted to really disrupt that thought pattern and so instead what I did was for every time

one of those negative thoughts came up I would replace it with uh things that I were grateful for about my body right so

I would look in the mirror and I'd say well I'm grateful for my hair I really like my hair today or I'm really grateful that my I have really long

eyelashes or that my eyebrows look pretty or that you know whatever it is right

um and so that became the more I did that it almost became a habit right so

whenever I would have a negative thought about almost anything it was a quick uh

Habit to replace it with a gratitude practice instead and that was a good way

to start re-programming my brain and my thought patterns from a negative uh track to a more

positive and gratitude type track and then the other thing that we do in our house which I'm glad you saved it

for me because this is my favorite thing um is the god box or the universe portal

or however you want to say it whatever works for you in your house if you want to implement this practice but we have

at the end of our hallway uh so for those of you who um are not familiar with our setup we

have a small little three bedroom house and um at the end of our hallway on either

side is to other rooms and those are our offices um it creates this tiny little alcove

and what we did is we put a box at the end of our hallway and growing up I used to have a little

box that was called a blessing box and I really liked that um I really like that idea and then I

had a friend tell me recently about a god box and what this God box was is that you

would put your worries in this box and you would kind of like deliver it to God and then he would stop worrying about it

and I liked both uh Concepts because if I'm talking to the universe or if I'm

talking to God or whatever I don't want to just leave my worries and make him you know a complaint box right but I

also didn't want to not leave my worries um or turn that over because

um so what we put in this box is we do we write down worries if we have any worries that are going on we put it in

the Box to get it off our mind but I also put my gratitudes in there so whenever

something happens immediately I write it down and I put it in the Box so whenever I'm grateful for you or

grateful for my team or if something happened that day that was really exciting I write it down on a little

Post-It note with a uh the pen and the Post-it notes that we have on the box and we just stick it in the little slot

on the box and the box is locked and then at the end of the year what we're going to be doing is on New Year's Eve

we're going to open the box and we're going to just read over all the things that we're grateful for from this year why we like it in the end of the hall is

we always pass it we're always in and out of the office so it's a constant visual reminder

um one to be grateful and two to write something in and put in the box so um that's a practice that we have as

well yeah I love that we started that I know me

too it's fun an excuse it's a fun little uh thing that we can do at the end of the year

too a little tradition you know you know what's what's really interesting uh something that you talked about there I

just want to touch on we can all practice gratitude in so many areas of

our life but we might not practice in all areas of our life and while I might

have started gratitude prior I didn't allow it and give that Grace to all

areas of my life and it wasn't until I saw you actually start that for yourself while you were

on your weight loss Journey that I actually started doing that for myself and my body as I've gone through my own

Transformations because I'm big on working out but I always used to look at it as you know

I'm doing this to be better I'm doing this to get a version of myself down the road that I don't have right now and I

always looked at myself as lacking in that moment not big enough I'm not strong enough I'm not good enough and

after watching you go through that my entire idea on how I I talked about my body changed because all of a sudden I

realized that I was also viewing my body if through lenses of lack or lenses of

not being good enough and carrying those judgments forward and watching you do

that it was almost like I was doing it in every other area of my life but I wasn't

granting the grace and gratitude towards myself does that ever happen to anybody because I

I was the last person that I was giving the Gratitude to and

me starting that completely changed how I showed up for myself I mean you could

you're you can attest to it the last 10 months my relationship with my body has not been one of trying to get to some

perfect version of myself it's been one of just appreciating the fact that I get to move in a way that I feel I feel good

about myself and that's it yeah it's interesting you and I have had these conversations about you know

manifestation about abundance about all of these things about going after our

goals and I think what we really honed in on this

year was that when it comes to manifestation it comes first with visualizing what it

is that you want right what is it that we want to go out and do receive abundantly make an impact do for our

clients uh want for ourselves Etc et cetera et cetera there's that

then you know that's the first start or first part visualizing it making it so crystal clear that it becomes so

ingrained in our subconscious the second uh part is is that once it's so ingrained in our subconscious it

becomes almost reality where that every action that you take

is towards that because it's in our subconscious right because we're living breathing eating walking acting in that

Accord but most people stop right there I think the third and the most key

important part about manifesting the life of your dreams is being so freaking grateful

for what you have right now because if you aren't grateful for what you have right now you're acting in a mindset of

lack of just like you said with with working out right if you're working out and the whole time you're beating

yourself up of I'm not enough I don't have enough I'm gonna you know you're working against yourself the whole time

right but if you are saying I am enough this is enough I am great

but I can be just a little bit better let's do this together it's a whole different ball game right yeah it's

basically getting flies with honey as opposed to vinegar because you're you're

pulling your ego you're pulling yourself con you're subconscious along with you on this journey and it's a lot easier to

pull your subconscious and your ego when it's feeling good about itself it's it's

it's not so fun to show up when you're beating yourself up and you're telling yourself a story of lack or that you're

not good enough uh because while it might be good for one maybe two

instances of Me versus the world eventually that motivation in that

moment is going to run out and what people don't realize is that I love motivation but what I love more than

motivation is discipline inconsistency because when I'm consistent and when I'm disciplined I

see the result of that consistency and discipline and I get motivated in the moment to continue

yeah as opposed to let me get some motivation to just get this one thing

done and then I'm spent because I went to a negative place to get it done yeah

and then then you're almost setting yourself back because you you kind of don't like yourself that much afterwards

you know because you beat yourself up the whole way you know yeah let's take a

quick break and then I want to come back and to be cognizant of time um I want to go through some of the

benefits of gratitude that are are research based um because it is so transformative

um but let's take a quick break and we'll be right back if you're ready for a transformation and

you're not sure where to start we suggest looking at where your money comes from your career funds the rest of your life if you're feeling burnt out

unfulfilled stagnant or unfulfilled in your career that can easily bleed over to the rest of your life most high

Achievers and leaders are great at what they do but when it comes to finding that next level or a company that aligns with their values attempting a job

search can be frustrating at least and demoralizing at most the traditional job search of submitting your resume to job

boards only yields about a two percent ROI when it comes to interviews and it can leave job Seekers feeling anxious

rejected and with feelings of imposter syndrome and low self-worth at optimized career Solutions we want to help

transform your job search we help by giving you the branding on your resume and Linkedin profile that sets you apart

as the industry leader or professional you are but we don't stop there we give you the proven strategies that Empower

you to be the leader you are in your career within your job search by getting directly connected to decision makers

and teaching you how to tell your impactful story to leaders at companies you're excited to work with book your

free consultation either with myself or Jack at get started.optimizecareersolutions.com on

this free call we're going to dive deeper into your career goals show you how we can support you in achieving them without the frustration and rejection

most job Seekers feel and help you transform your mindset and gain invaluable skills you'll use throughout

the rest of your career the first step to the next chapter of your career is just a couple clicks away book your free

consultation with us now at get started.optimizecareersolutions.com

all right welcome back so when we were researching the benefits of gratitude what was really interesting is that

there is a piece from positivesychology.com that split the benefits into five different groups and

I thought this was really kind of cool um the five different groups were emotional benefits social benefits

personality benefits career benefits and health benefits which do you want to tackle first

uh well let's talk about health benefits okay so

uh health benefits are fascinating so

starting in 2005 and I'm going to try and go through these pretty quickly

um and then I'll let you take some of the other ones like the um the ones that you found like emotional and things like

that but um the physical health benefits

okay a study in 2005 showed that gratitude actually reduced depression in

participants by 35 over several weeks

um by practicing gratitude journaling that's a huge deal 35 wow isn't that

well um another one with uh blood pressure so those of you who are feeling a little

bit uh pressure hypertension um patience and this is a study from 1977 but there's a follow-up one from I

believe 2006. uh those with hypertension who counted Their Blessings or were

grateful at least once a week experience a significant decrease in blood pressure resulting in better overall health

that's pretty awesome um improving your sleep I don't know anyone who doesn't need more sleep

uh two-week gratitude intervention in a study in 2016 increased Sleep Quality

and reduced blood pressure in participants leading to enhanced well-being so if you're having trouble

sleeping or waking up feeling fatigued try uh gratitude journaling right before

bed it also shows that you are able to improve your overall physical health and

potentially your frequency of exercise and it can help in recovery so in 2017

there was a research research study that showed that researchers and addiction

programs alike have noticed that gratitude can play a key role in recovering from substance misuse or

abuse as well as it can enhance recovery from coronary health events so that um

or in this study it showed that Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital found that acute coronary

syndrome patients experience greater improvements in health related quality of life and then Also it talks about uh

depression there was another study that also talks about a specific woman with depression

um revealed that Buddhist teachings and with a strong emphasis and gratitude

helped her to heal her depression so those are some of the health benefits which were

I mean incredible in and of itself yeah that that is crazy and and the fact

that I saw you had mentioned about the aspects on the heart recovery

that's gotta do something with the nervous system and really probably has something to do with gratitude just

affecting the nervous system and kind of giving like a almost like a a

Tranquility shot to the nervous system well speaking of let's talk about the

Gratitude and the emotional benefits right so in a study in 2005 this is

actually by the same people who did the eq6 uh quiz that we did at the beginning simply journaling for five minutes a day

about what we're grateful for can enhance our long-term Happiness by over 10 long term and there was another study

in another uh Journal let me scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll uh talks about how

there was this whole study they did where uh

they had people write gratitude letters right and this is from greater good in

Berkeley uh I believe did the study where they wrote about negative

experiences right this this group of people and half the group received counseling

and half the group wrote gratitude letters after writing about the negative

experiences is what I believe happened and what they found were four really incredible things right gratitude

unshackles us from toxic emotions uh the people who wrote about the negative uh

things and didn't write about the positive stuff had a lot

um more toxic emotions the ones who didn't write about gratitude and then the other ones who did were able to uh

release ruminations about negative experiences what they also found is that it helps

even if you don't share the letters with the people that you wrote to right so you could just write a letter to the

person that you're grateful for without even sharing it to but I mean it feels nice when you share it right

um it also uh has lasting effects on the brain right so they the people who wrote the

Gratitude letters had an MRI on their brain three months after the study and

it found that it had lasting effects on the brain after the effect right so uh

the activation has showed greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex when they experience gratitude so

I thought that was really really fascinating too so they only did this study for 12 weeks and then 12 Weeks

Later did the MRI and there were still benefits so I thought that was pretty cool that medial cortex is is where the

Learning Happens so that that shows that by doing the the Gratitude practice

they're actually parts of the brain are firing that learned this Behavior

you want to know what else is kind of cool about the emotional benefits is that it has also shown this is a study

in 2014. it reduces Envy and I can see that too because the more

I was grateful for um things that I liked about myself the

less I cared about other people right unless I was jealous about other people unless I compared myself to other

people um and the next thing is that it uh reports Greater Life satisfaction and

self-esteem I would say my confidence has also gone up yeah I'd agree with that yeah it also

decreases depression like we talked about and suicidal ideation

which is a huge thing um do you have this document up do you

want to go over some of the social benefits yeah I have it up as well and uh I mean the social benefits are huge I

mean it shows that people who practice gratitude tend to have people liking them more and they have a greater access

to a wider social network more friends and this is just because of the effect

that being grateful has on being trustworthy and being appreciative of how others see us you know people want

to be around people who are appreciative of things I could also see that with the next one talking about the Romantic

relationships the fact that you are grateful and you're showing gratitude to loved ones and your point picking out

the things that you really appreciate regardless of whether you're sharing it

with your spouse or not I mean that's only gonna make you lean harder in right

because you're seeing more of the things that make you feel good and that you

appreciate as opposed to picking out the things that need to be worked on and yeah I could going a step further

I mean talking about friendship social support right people are going to get behind you more when they see the fact

that you're an individual who really cares about others that also

wants to practice this and uplift others and you're always trying to see the good

in things people are going to get behind you they're not going to be adverse and or against you when those types of

things it's also going to help you in times of stress because things are going to happen in life bad

things are going to happen we can't control that but we can control how we react to those things and uh that's that

famous quote uh by um Gandhi really that where he talks about you can be the

change you want to see in the world and you can only control your thoughts and emotions as to something when something

happens and I mean it's also going to have effects on who you are as a person it's going to

Inc make you more optimistic you're not going to be as pessimistic when you're focusing on the positives or the things

that you're grateful for as opposed to the negatives and that's kind of cool too a five to fifteen percent increase

in optimism that's so cool and and it's funny that that they say that but it what are we

doing when we're focusing on gratitude we're reducing negatives yeah negativity and one of the biggest ways is probably

going to be a future episode is is ways to increase positivity it's really just reducing the negative output yeah and

I mean I could keep going but the the one of the things that I I noticed most

on this list it's reduced materialism enhanced optimism

and makes us more giving I think the world needs more of that right now I think really if we can be more giving if

we can be able to view things from others perspectives it's going to make things a lot uh smoother as we go ahead

and progress in our future um there are just so many benefits to this gratitude practice I want to

quickly just go over the career benefits and then we'll just wrap it up I know we're a little um a little longer today

but I think this is important but we love this topic I love this we're grateful for it

um so when it comes to career benefits gratitude makes us more effective leaders uh the Gratitude research has

shown that practicing gratitude enhances managerial skills enhances praise giving motivating abilities it reduces

impatience improves decision making meaning that you'll be less impatient during economic decision making leading

to better decisions and less pressure for the desire for short-term gratification helps us to find that

meaning in our work the study from 2015 shows that those who Find meaning and

purpose in their work are often more effective and more fulfilled throughout their career gratitude is one factor that can help people find meaning in

their job it contributes to reduced turnover researchers found that gratitude and respect in the workplace

can help employees feel embedded in their organization which means that they're welcomed and valued and it

improves work-related mental health and reduces stress so what we're finding

over here is that when you are in a practice of gratitude not only does it

show others that you're a more it seems well-rounded healthier positive

optimistic um person but it actually gives you health

and career benefits too right it makes you a better leader it helps you feel

more fulfilled not only in your life in your relationships in your marriage in your family Dynamics but in your work

Dynamics as well and from what we've noticed in our lives it's changed not

only our relationship to each other our relationships to our team members to our clients and with ourselves in our

thought patterns right our relationship to ourselves how we see ourselves our

thought patterns um and they overwhelmingly has in my

opinion these things given me these things it has made me more optimistic it

has made me more confident it has decreased my depression depressive symptoms and uh thought patterns I feel

it has made me a better leader I have gotten more sleep because it's decreased my anxiety

um do you feel like some of these benefits for you jack have yeah I I think for me uh really allowed me to

um work on a lot of different areas in terms of for one reduced materialism I was always one who always needed that

shiny new thing right just just see that another another piece of equipment that new apparel oh my God you know it it

it's it's a sign for how others view me so I need to have the newest thing and I

noticed that when I really do practice my gratitude I don't have a need for

really anything my materialism reduces to very minimal if any

um the other thing is it does make me more giving it makes me being willing to

uh just throw that ridiculous tip when we go out there on a date night for that server or when we're just going to get

coffee and we surprise uh the young person who's working the the uh the cash

register at the coffee place with a very nice tip for somebody who's just picking

up two cups of coffee but also really the the biggest things that I've noticed

it's how I view myself my own my own self-esteem but my also my own

psychological well-being the thoughts and the environment and and the tracks that play in my head daily that has

completely changed where now it's a supportive environment it's not one coming from lack or feeling that I'm

behind the eight ball or I need to do something uh or I'm a failure it's now a

collaborative type of environment in my head through my thoughts actions and

it's so much more enjoyable to be myself on The Daily when I'm practicing

gratitude no we would love to hear from you either

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download on Instagram or we even have an email it's the denizin download

gmail.com tell us Have you listened to our previous past uh previous episodes

rather or this episode how has a gratitude affected your life drop a

comment on either of those we would love a five-star review especially on Apple

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you're watching us say it um and give us a quick shout out love to

hear what you're grateful for this year for Thanksgiving or for 2022 in general

um and from our family to yours Happy Thanksgiving and have a great rest of your week Happy Thanksgiving