How Gratitude Rewires Your Brain | Jim Kwik

Hello, Kwik Brain. So what are you grateful for in this moment? What do you appreciate more than anything right now? Every year around Thanksgiving, people pause and they reflect on what they're most thankful for. Maybe it's their food, their family, their friends, everything that we value in our lives. But here's the thing, did you know that this tradition has the power to rewire your brain? Because it does. That while it's great to count your blessings on days like Thanksgiving, That giving thanks, practiced regularly throughout the year, can have tremendous benefits. It can keep your brain and your body happier and healthier. So in this Kwik Brain episode, I'll share with you how gratitude can change your brain and change your life, and a few things you can do right away to tap your thankfulness superpower. So first, what is gratitude? Gratitude is the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to you. Right? It's a general state of thankfulness. And here's the thing, it doesn't take big events or expensive objects to create gratitude. You can actually train yourself to constantly be grateful for the little things in life so you can experience that joy on a regular basis. So what is happening in your brain when you feel gratitude? Let's start with your hypothalamus. It's the part of your brain that regulates a number of your bodily functions that are critical, including your— appetite, your sleep, your temperature, your metabolism, your growth. A National Institute of Health study showed that our hypothalamus is activated when we feel gratitude. And when we perform acts of kindness and experience feelings of gratitude, it floods our brains with a chemical called dopamine. When we are truly grateful for something or someone, our brains reward us by giving us a natural high. Because this feeling is so good, we are motivated to feel it again and again and again and become more inclined to give thanks and also do good for others. Zig Ziglar says, gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude of what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for. According to UCLA's Mindfulness Awareness Research Center, regularly expressing gratitude changes the molecular structure of your brain and it keeps the gray matter functioning and makes us healthier and happier. And who doesn't want that, right? Really, gratitude may be one of the most overlooked tools that we have access to every single day. And cultivating gratitude doesn't cost any money, and it certainly doesn't take a lot of time, but the research is clear that the benefits are so enormous. We always wanna start with the why in order to do the what. Let's start with physical health and energy. We all want that, right? Grateful people experience fewer aches and pains. They report feeling healthier than other people, according to a study published in Personality and individual differences. Grateful people are more likely to take care of their health. They exercise more often and are more likely to attend regular checkups with their doctors, which should likely contribute to longevity. And secondly, mental health, right? That's why we're here. We want mental health and energy. And gratitude has been proven to reduce a multitude of toxic emotions ranging from envy to resentment to frustration to regret. Dr. Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher, has conducted studies on the link between gratitude and well-being. His Research confirms that gratitude effectively increases happiness and reduces depression. And gratitude research also discovered that writing, simple writing in a gratitude journal, often can reduce blood pressure by 10%. So number 3, why else cultivate gratitude? Sleep. You'll sleep better. Writing in a gratitude journal improves sleep according to a study in Applied Psychology. There have been numerous scientific studies and research on gratitude that all yield the same result. Gratitude increases the quality of our sleep, decreases the time it takes to fall asleep, and lengthens the duration of our sleep. And then what about mental strength? Research has shown that gratitude not only reduces stress, but it also plays a major role in overcoming trauma. There was a 2006 study published in the Behavior Research and Therapy found that Vietnam War veterans with higher levels of gratitude experienced lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder. So gratitude benefits us all by making us more resilient to trauma and stressful events. Subjects that were grateful were faster in their recoveries after something traumatic happened than those that weren't. And recognizing all you have to be thankful for, even during the worst times of your life, fosters this thing called resilience, fosters grit. And then finally, self-esteem. Studies have shown that gratitude reduces social comparisons. And this is really big, because in the world we live in with people experiencing Facebook depression because they're looking at all the highlight trailers of everyone's life and comparing it to their actual life. So rather than becoming resentful towards people who have more of something, which is a major factor in reducing self-esteem, grateful people are able to appreciate themselves more as well as other people's accomplishments. So cultivate an attitude of gratitude, and it's one of the simplest things to boost your brain, your body, your business, your entire being. But where do you start? Here are a few things you could do today. Number 1, keep a daily gratitude journal. And what you want to do is list 3 things that you're thankful for. That's it, 3 things. I recommend you do this first thing in the morning. If you listen to my daily routines, how I jumpstart my brain episode, and I also recommend you do this in the evening before you go to bed, because it'll help you to be able to fall asleep. And so you're just writing 3 things in the morning and 3 things in the evening. And if you'd like, if you're not really sure, you need a jumpstart question, do this. Just count all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. Just write down all the things that you have. If you really want to feel wealthy, write down all the things that you have in your life that money can't buy. If you want to do it in a journal, that's great. Also, if you want to get added points, you could create a gratitude jar. And that's for you. You could do it with your family. It's an exercise you could do and just write down your gratitude for the day and just put it in there. Just pop it in. And as the bowl fills, you'll have a physical representation, something you could see and touch of all the many things you have to be grateful for. And those times where you feel like you're stressed or you have anxiety, and you could just reach into the bowl and just read and feel everything you have in your life that you could appreciate at the moment. Number 2, make it a practice to tell someone you appreciate them. Call them, write them a love note, Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. Make a practice with loved ones. Share gratitudes as a family, maybe at the dinner table or in meetings with your team. For my private mastermind clients, we start every gathering with this gratitude exercise. Number 3, look in the mirror. Just look in the mirror. Maybe have a trigger like we talked about in the habits episode. Maybe you're brushing your teeth, and while you're doing that, Allow that to remind you to think of something you like about yourself. Really, something you did, something you accomplished, something about yourself. Maybe it's an inner characteristic that you really appreciate about yourself. Number 4, practice mindfulness. Practice mindfulness. If you're always thinking about the next thing, it's difficult to really appreciate the presence. And in order to be able to have gratitude, you must be present. So take a breath and slow life down. Sometimes you have to slow down to be able to speed up. Spend time in nature, away from digital devices, away from your screens, away from your distractions that can cause stress, that could tax your nerves, that could challenge your peace of mind. Remember, the more grateful you are, the more present you become. And then finally, number 5 is reduce judgment. It's that inner critic that keeps you from feeling gratitude. You know, you heard of the old parable? It's about a farmer's horse who ran away. His neighbor said, what a shame. And the farmer said, maybe. The next day, the horse came back, and it brought back wild horses with it. The neighbor said, how wonderful. And the farmer said, maybe. The next day, the horse stepped on the farmer's son's arm, and it broke. The neighbor said, how horrible. The farmer said, maybe. The next day, the government came to the village drafting people for the war. They passed over the farmer's son because of his broken arm. How wonderful! the neighbors said. The farmer said, of course, maybe. Just remember, you determine what things mean. There's a story about a family with twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other felt it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every single way. One was an eternal optimist, one full of gratitude. The other was doom and gloom, was a pessimist. And just to see what would happen, on the twins' birthday, their father loaded the pessimist's room with every imaginable toy and game. Wanted to see if his son would just appreciate that and have gratitude around all these toys and games, even though he was a negative thinker. And he loaded the optimist's room, the one that's always grateful, with horse manure, a pile of horse manure. And that night, the father passed by the pessimist's room and found him sitting amidst all the new gifts, and he was crying bitterly. And the father asked, why are you crying? And he says, because my friends will be jealous. I'll have to read all of these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff. I constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken, answered the pessimist twin. Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in a pile of manure, swimming in all the manure, and said, what are you so happy about? What are you so grateful about? he asked. To which the optimist twin replied, with all this manure, there has to be a pony in here somewhere. And what's the message here? The message is nothing is positive, nothing is negative. It's thinking that makes it so. And gratitude is a state of mind. Gratitude is a state of heart. The bottom line is this: the more you practice gratitude, the more aware you are of it, the more you and your brain can enjoy all the benefits. So what do you have to be grateful for today? In the spirit of gratitude, I want to thank our team for their time, their talent, their commitment to our mission of building better, brighter brains. And of course, to you, our listeners, and all our students around the world for making our passion of teaching possible. So that's what I'm grateful for. What about you? Make your gratitude post on social media today with something you're really thankful for. What or who do you appreciate? Because what you appreciate appreciates and it grows. Tag me @JimKwik and #KwikBrain so we can see what you appreciate and we'll repost some of our favorites. Remember, it's not happy people who are thankful, it's thankful people who are happy. I wish your days be full of lots of love, lots of life, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning.