What better time of year to reflect on the proven benefits of gratitude?

Here is some information from the Health Leader, an online wellness magazine:

"Psychologists Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis, and Michael McCullough, at the University of Miami, are researchers in field of gratitude. What they have learned so far is that gratitude is really, really good for you.

Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal, and health-based). Young adults who practiced a daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) had higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, and energy compared to the group that focused on life's hassles.

There is evidence that when we practice bringing attention to what we appreciate in our lives, more positive emotions emerge, leading to beneficial alterations in heart rate variability. This may not only relieve hypertension but reduce the risk of sudden death from coronary artery disease.

An example of practicing gratitude is volunteering to help others in return for having been helped. As an experience, it is felt in the same frontal regions of the brain that are activated by awe, wonder, and transcendence. From these cortical and limbic structures come dopamine and serotonin, the chemicals for feeling good inside. Gratitude, then, can be a total body experience and beyond - meaning the deepest and widest gratitude comes from the soul and that part of the brain - the amygdala - that registers "soul" experiences.

So when we look at snow-capped peaks or golden swatches of changing aspen or the Milky Way at night from high in the Rockies, our souls sing and our bodies are suffused with streams of dopamine and serotonin, the gifts of gratitude. In short, feeling gratitude and appreciation on a regular basis helps heal us at every level of our being."

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