3 Ways Gratitude CAN Benefit You
Gratitude is one of the simplest, but most powerful ways to have more energy. It can help you feel more relaxed and optimistic, improve your health and allow you to live a happier and healthier life.
#1: It reduces stress
You probably already know that stress can cause a lot of health problems. Stress is one of the major causes of illness in the world, and it's responsible for heart disease, cancer, and other conditions.
It's easy to see why gratitude could help reduce your stress levels: it's an excellent way to deal with stressful situations. When you feel grateful for what you have—and when other people show you gratitude—you'll be less likely to get stressed out in the first place!
#2. It improves health
If you're not aware of the benefits of gratitude, here are just a few: It improves your sleep, increases energy levels, and helps you recover from illness faster.
- Gratitude can help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.
- Gratitude strengthens your immune system.
- When you're grateful for something or someone, it reduces stress and anxiety—which also improve health.
#3. Gratitude can help you live a happier, healthier life.
Gratitude has been shown to reduce stress and improve your health. It has also been shown to help you feel happier, maybe it's because you had a better night of sleep, which helps make you more optimistic about the future. This optimism can make it easier for you to get out of bed in the morning and have an upbeat attitude throughout your day. Gratitude can also increase your generosity towards others, as well as being beneficial for those around you who don't practice gratitude regularly themselves—it's contagious.
I hope this blog post has helped you understand the benefits of gratitude. If you’ve never tried it before, I encourage you to give it a shot! There are lots of ways to practice and express gratitude in your life, so no matter where you are on your journey, there will be something for everyone.
I have a FREE GRATITUDE JOURNAL PAGE for YOU!
I have a FREE GRATITUDE JOURNAL PAGE for YOU!
Do you think Stress Has been around since the beginning of time?
Most have heard the creation story in the Bible. My question is...
DID STRESS EXIST IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?
We read in Genesis 1 that God made man and woman in His image. He gave us dominion over all animals. He gave us plants to eat.
ALL WAS GOOD.
(If you would like to hear the rest of the story instead of reading it- I share the video version here.)
Read more...
As a physical therapist, I became an expert at seeing how stress affected the health of my patients and how it affected their ability to heal.
It wasn’t the patients who were in accidents or had a one-time injury, those patients I would see, deliver physical therapy services, give them a home exercise program, they would reach their goals, and be discharged. They were the easy patients.
It was our patients who did not know why they were hurting, or what they had done to cause the pain and typically had a long list of chronic diseases to go with their long list of prescriptions and age was not usually a factor.
WHAT I FOUND THEY HAD IN COMMON WAS CHRONIC STRESS.
Our services helped lower their stress, their home exercise program helped them keep their stress in check and they felt better.
Until they stopped and found their symptoms returned.
They would come back for us to “fix” them again. We often lovingly called them our repeat offenders.
I’m sure many didn’t return and would go search for an answer somewhere else.
We couldn’t “fix” them, but we could teach them ways to lower their stress levels and allow their body to heal and feel better.
HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT EXPERTS ARE OFTEN GREAT AT HELPING OTHERS SEE THEIR ISSUES, BUT EITHER DON’T SEE OR IGNORE THEIR OWN?
I AM GUILTY.
(If you would like to hear more about how I came to realize, I was more like my patients than I thought instead of reading the rest of the story here. Check out the VIDEO version.)
Read more...
Today is the day of New Year's Resolutions!!!
What if instead of setting a New Year's Resolution of weight loss, exercise, or drinking more water? Which are all great, but often go by the wayside in mid-January you set a New Year's Resolution of taking full responsibility for who you become in 2022.
Instead of your New Year's resolution focusing on what to do, you focus on who you want to become and what you have control over to get there.
What if we looked at our choices and actions and recognized the consequences that came from them and say, “I could have done... and the result might have been different. Next time, I will do...”
Taking full responsibility doesn’t mean you have to let your inner critic tell you all the things you have done wrong. Instead, it’s the opportunity for your compassionate and understanding self to say- “good job for empowering yourself with a new choice next time instead of becoming a victim of your circumstances or blaming others for your results.”
I invite you to set your New Year’s Resolution to become the Exceptional YOU - one that takes full responsibility for who you are today and who you can become tomorrow on your own personal health journey.
Then ask yourself, who do I want to be in 2022?
Maybe it’s a woman who weighs 20 lbs less than the woman you are today.
What does a woman who takes full responsibility for where she is at today do to change?
Maybe she sets an exercise goal for the month
or a goal to kick a sugar habit or drink less soda pop.
- Maybe you take full responsibility for not following through on goals you have set and give yourself grace for what you haven’t done and start congratulating yourself for the little things you have done.
- Maybe you take full responsibility for the stress you are in and take care of yourself in a way that allows you to release stress and love yourself in a way that says, I deserve to be the woman I want to be.
When you take full responsibility, it can feel a bit overwhelming. We often want to find fault in our past and stay there. But, it can also be a feeling of empowerment because when we acknowledge our faults and that we are where we are because of our choices, we can choose to change and grow.
The next step is the willingness to change. So often we want something different, yet we are afraid of change.
Once you take full responsibility for your life and the willingness to change, you will see the new actions to take to get the results you desire. Instead of thinking “I should...” you begin to think “I could...” When you don’t get the result you want, you go back to “I could have done... and the result might have been different. Next time, I will do...”
Who are you going to become in 2022?
Exceptional You,
Shawna Cale, PT, LCTI, CHHWC
How are you? How's YOUr Heart?
This month I am focusing on heart health and one thing I have learned on my health journey is that our heart is...
