Mental Health Expert Recommends This Daily Gratitude Practice
By Movieguide® Contributor
Looking for a simple way to integrate gratitude into your daily life? One expert has this tip to share.
Dr. Mariel Buqué, a licensed psychologist and holistic mental health practitioner, emphasized the importance of practicing gratitude during an episode of the “Advice to My Younger Self” podcast.
“What we want to do is be able to attach some sort of positive emotional experience to our daily lives in order to actually achieve an element of balance and one of the ways we’re able to do that is doing actual, active exercises that promote gratitude,” she explained.
While there are many ways to promote gratitude in your own life, Buqué recommended starting with a simple one.
“When you wake up, as you open your eyes, start noting all the things you feel grateful for,” she advised. “The most important thing to do is start at the basics, so really starting with ‘I woke up this morning, I have the capacity to breathe, I woke up in a warm home, I have a bed.’”
Buqué continued, “When we can offer ourselves an opportunity for gratitude for having even those smaller things, it allows us a little bit of…balance. It’s more of a gentle practice. It’s something that you can really get into within a couple seconds.”
READ MORE: THANKSGIVING AS A WAY OF LIFE
Many studies have been conducted on the positive impact practicing gratitude can have on people.
In one done by Harvard in 2021, one group of people were directed to write down the things they were grateful for each week. Another group was asked to write a list of the things that irritated them each week.
“After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives,” Harvard’s website reported. “Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.”
There are even physical effects gratitude can have on the body.
“Physiological changes associated with gratitude are typically a reduction in blood pressure and increase in vagal tone, which is taken as an index of increased parasympathetic influence on the peripheral nervous system,” Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Science Director at the Greater Good Science Center, explained.
Mindful.org shared that this ability to soothe the nervous system “can help you conserve energy by slowing the heart rate, stimulating digestion, and contributing to overall relaxation.”
READ MORE: KIRK CAMERON CALLS GRATITUDE ‘A POWERFUL WEAPON TO DESTROY EVIL’
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