“If one more person appreciates me, I quit! If I get one more compliment, I’m done!”, said no one, ever. Gratitude has been found to be the #1 predictor of well-being and a strong determinant of resilience.

Resilient people proactively cultivate positive emotions like humor, gratitude and optimism. You don’t even have to find anything to be grateful for. The simple act of looking for the positive decreases the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Just looking for something to appreciate increases serotonin and dopamine, the feel-good neurochemicals in most antidepressants.

Gratitude affects your brain at a neurological level. A gratitude practice has a positive impact on: sleep, mood, alertness, physical risk markers for future disease, happiness, better financial decision making, problem solving, optimism, productivity, and goal orientation. People who practice gratitude are perceived as more likeable, have fewer aches and pains, have increased self esteem, and make friends more easily. Practicing gratitude lowers stress, enhances empathy, lowers your risk of cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes, and it improves your immune system and cardiovascular health.

Still not convinced?

When we have a negative experience, it encodes itself into our neural structure immediately. Your brain doesn’t give the same weight to positive experiences because they don’t have an immediate impact on your survival. 

Our brain has a negativity bias, causing it to constantly scan the environment for what’s wrong. Mind Over Moment is a way to help it find the things that are right. In order to offset negativity bias, when you have a great moment (I call it a delicious moment), savor it. Savoring is the ability to step outside of the moment to truly appreciate it.  

You can encode positive experiences and retrain the brain by sitting in a positive experience for 15-20 seconds. Really soak in that beautiful moment, appreciate it, and relish the feeling. You have to deliberately sustain and internalize positive emotions to transfer them from short-term memory to long-term storage. You can’t just have the experience. You have to install it.

There is literally no downside to practicing gratitude.

• Journaling for 5 minutes a day about what you are grateful for can enhance long-term happiness by 10%.
• Write a letter, send a text or email thanking someone. Give a compliment.
• Create a gratitude jar, or simply recount the best parts of your day when you fall asleep at night. We are so busy in our constant search for happy that we forget happiness isn’t a trait, it’s a skill.

You have the power to change your brain and your life. I am incredibly grateful for you! Thank you for inviting me to be a part of your week.

Stay brave and resilient,

Anne