YouTube clip from Dr. Don Wood (Inspired Performance Institute) titled "Holiday Anxiety Reduction Tips Day 8," using the "12 Days of Christmas" motif to teach a holiday-anxiety reduction tip. Day eight is framed around "8 maids of milking," but Dr. Wood pivots to the concept of gratitude: he describes gratitude as a practice that changes brain chemistry (raising oxytocin), and lists evidence-backed benefits—improved health, reduced stress and anxiety, greater resilience, better sleep, and improved relationships. The tone is conversational, slightly humorous, and practical; the segment closes with a prompt to keep listening for more tips.
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Welcome to the 12 days of heart. And again, heart represents holiday anxiety reduction tips. And I'm your Host and guide, Dr. Don Wood, of the Inspired Performance Institute. So now we're looking at day eight. And so again, we're using the theme of the 12 days of Christmas. And day eight is. Let me see. First, let's get in the holiday spirit. Get this. Oh, boy, this hat is.
Really tight. Actually got a message on this one. So. All right, let's take a look here. Oh, yeah, we also have Alexa. Alexa, play some holiday music.
And waking. Alexa. Alexa, play some holiday music.
Wow. Not listening to me. It's like my kids. Alexa, play some holiday music.
Here's a station you might like. Holiday favorites on Amazon. User only took 3 times. Still faster than my kids. All right, holiday music. Perfect. So day eight. What is day eight all about? So let's take a look. On eighth day of Christmas. On the eighth day of Christmas.
My true love gave to me Eight maids of milking. Hmm. I told you. We're gonna switch up from the birds eventually. I wonder why they switch from birds, though. Did they just run out of birds? I don't know. I'm not complaining. Right. Nice to have a change. Nice to switch it up every once in a while. Eight maids of milking. So, all right, let me just see. Let's go in and find out what the definition of eight maids of milking is. Let's see. So according to Google, eight maids of milking is eight young women taking milk from cows. Oh, my God.
It's from a Christmas song. Really? Surprise. Even Google can't figure this out. So anyway, let's move on. If I look at number eight, what number eight always reminds me of is this. Pretty perfect, right? Eight. Right. And I always think about gratitude. What is gratitude? Right. So number eight is complete in gratitude. Whatever you put out returns to you. So if you practice gratitude and you use gratitude in your daily lives, everything will come full circle and come back to you. So number eight is a perfect number, a perfect symbol. Right. For gratitude. So when you use gratitude and you practice gratitude, you change the chemical structure of your brain so you actually produce a hormone called oxytocin. And oxytocin is a bonding hormone. It helps you to connect to other people. When a baby is first born and a mother is feeding the baby, both the mother and the baby are experiencing a flood of oxytocin. That's the bonding hormone that they use. Right. And it's a natural process, and it's beautiful. So the more you practice gratitude, the more you use it, it's going to have a number of different effects. So let's look at really quickly the benefits, right, to using gratitude. And there's a lot of research behind this. So gratitude improves your health, reduces stress and anxiety, also helps build resilience. It helps you deal better with adversity. It also helps you sleep better. Even the people that you love and care for are better if you're experiencing and practicing gratitude, even if they're not. So they're all better as long as you're doing it. So that's perfect. So what could you lose? All right. Anxiety.
Keep listening for more tips in your inbox. And there it is.
