Building Gratitude
One of the hottest trends to come out of the self-help world over the last few years is gratitude. And it's no surprise, gratitude has been found to be one of the greatest indicators of overall well-being. I'm usually pretty skeptical about things that get hyped quite as much as gratitude has been - I mean when you see the list of things that a gratitude practice can help with it's pretty easy to roll your eyes. I mean can gratitude really do all those things that people say it can?
Today we'll be exploring the mechanisms that make gratitude work - and also perhaps tempering some of the hype around it - then we'll be looking at ways we can find things to be grateful in our lives as well as looking at some ways that we can start a gratitude practice.
And I'll admit, this episode is a little less ADHD-focused - but gratitude was something that was on my mind, for reasons that I get into during the episode. And so even though this episode is a little less ADHD specific I still think everyone can get a lot out of it.
I'm your host William Curb and I have ADHD and also I have Covid-19...
<record scratch>
Well had... well, I think I'm getting over it, and for those of you wondering, yes I did get that vaccine, it's just that the delta variant is incredibly contagious. With this in mind I'd like to recommend everyone keep wearing their masks and limiting their social interaction - take from me, Covid sucks and I had a fairly mild case.
So that's how my time off has been going so far... oh and I had a wildfire 1/4 mile from my house so that was fun too.
With all that, today we're going to be talking about gratitude. Even with everything I've gone through the last few weeks I still have a lot of things to be grateful for - a supportive family, a roof over my head, clean drinking water. But I also want to be clear here that gratitude isn't about denying your problems, even though I'm grateful for these things I still have problems in my life - I mean I still got Covid, and trust me, COVID sucks.
So today we'll be exploring the mechanisms that make gratitude work - and also perhaps tempering some of the hype around it - then we'll be looking at ways we can find things to be grateful in our lives as well as looking at some ways that we can start a gratitude practice.
This Episode's Top Tips
Gratitude is showing thanks and appreciation and it has a tremendous impact on our brains. Gratitude can help us release build our relationships, regulate stress, improve sleep quality, build self-esteem and make us happier.
One way we can practice gratitude is through mindfulness and seeing all the things in our lives that are going right. It's easy for us to latch onto the negative things that happen during our day. We'll miss all the things that went right because when things go according to plan they can often become invisible.
We can also practice gratitude by journaling or writing a letter to someone in our lives that has greatly impacted us.
Mentioned in This Episode
Thanks A Thousand