Brain Fact Wednesday on ”The Neuroscience of an Effective Gratitude Practice”

Did you know that there is crucial component of mental, psychological, and social health that is often overlooked[i] and that “Gratitude is a mindset that activates your prefrontal cortex and sets the context for your experience such that you can derive tremendous health benefits?”[ii] Dr. Andrew Huberman On this episode you will learn:✔︎  Why your gratitude practice might be outdated, like mine, without brain-science in mind. ✔︎  The physical, psychological and social benefits of an effective gratitude practice. ✔︎  The most effective way to practice gratitude, with your brain in mind. ✔︎  5 STEPS for an effective Gratitude Practice that will help you tap into the mental, psychological and social benefits.  If you are like me and have a gratitude journal that sits on your desk, and you might have heard of the many health benefits that being grateful can have on you and your life, but you aren’t really sure if your gratitude practice is truly an effective one—then, this Brain Fact Friday is for you. Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for EPISODE #181 on “The Ingredients of an Effective Gratitude Practice.”  I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies that we can use to improve our own productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. We can achieve outstanding and predictable outcomes with whatever it is we are working towards, when we act intentionally, with our brain in mind. For those of us in the United States, we are approaching Thanksgiving, where we traditionally think of what we are grateful for. I know our Canadian listeners have had this holiday last month, as I watched friends and family celebrate, but I always wonder why there is just one holiday that puts an emphasis on practicing gratitude, especially when there are so many studies that show the clear benefits that gratitude has on our life. You can see for yourself. Go to www.pubmed.gov and type in the word gratitude and fMRI and you will see many recent studies that show how “gratitude leads to benefits for both mental health and interpersonal relationships”[iii] and when you look at the researchers immersed in this work, you will see University Professor and Chair in Neuroscience, Antonio Damasio’s[iv] name come up often with his contributions to the understanding of brain processes that underlie emotions, feelings, decision-making and consciousness, in addition to his work with gratitude. I’m sure those of you listening to this podcast would know that gratitude is good for your brain, and if you dig deeper into it, you would have discovered that “scientifically speaking, regular grateful thinking can increase happiness by as much as 25%, while keeping a gratitude journal for as little as three weeks results in better sleep and more energy.”[v] But as I dug deeper into the research behind this episode, I started to see there was much more to creating the benefits of a gratitude practice when you dive into the Science of Gratitude like the impressive and respected podcaster, Dr. Andrew Huberman[vi] who covered this topic on his podcast this week. I highly suggest listening to his podcast, where I had many AHA Moments, for a thorough look at the why gratitude has such a profound impact on our health and well-being. Then I came across professor of psychology, at the University of CA, who has studied more than one thousand people, from ages eight to 80, and found that people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of benefit that go far beyond helping us to be happier and well rested. Robert Emmons, a leader in the positive psychology movement, editor in chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology and Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, is the author of over 200 original publications in peer‑