Empowered Mama Gift: Gratitude

Empowered Mama Gift: Gratitude

November 20, 2017 Shelley Hopper

"To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kindness that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude."

- Albert Schweitzer

By now, we're pretty well-aware that new studies on mindfulness and gratitude can play an important role in our mental wellness, outlook on life, sense of hope, healing, and peace. I've read countless books and articles on the internet (and Pinterest, of course) about the art of gratitude and just how important it is to our mental and physical well-being. But, I wanted to dig a little deeper into the WHY. Into the HOW. Into the scientific studies behind it. That's when I found this gem of an article via UMass Dartmouth (you can also find another gratitude article here by Raymond Geddes).

In our Founding Mama's book, The Empowered Mama, Lisa Druxman goes over tips and tricks to get mom out of the 24/7 chaos and back to feeling grounded and less overwhelmed.

All week long we're sharing a goodie bag of freebies out of The Empowered Mama, and today we're featuring the benefits of gratitude.

"Researchers like Martin Seligman, Robert Emmons, and Michael McCullough are turning their attention to the study of gratitude and its relationship to health and mental well-being" (UMass Dartmouth, 2017).

Here is a list of those researchers' findings via UMass Dartmouth's article (which you can find the full post here) :

People who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis have been found to exercise more regularly, have fewer physical symptoms, feel better about their lives as a whole, and feel more optimistic about their upcoming week as compared to those who keep journals recording the stressors or neutral events of their lives.

Daily discussion of gratitude results in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, energy, and sleep duration and quality. Grateful people also report lower levels of depression and stress, although they do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

People who think about, talk about, or write about gratitude daily are more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or offered emotional support to another person.

Those with a disposition towards gratitude are found to place less importance on material goods, are less likely to judge their own or others success in terms of possessions accumulated, are less envious of wealthy people, and are more likely to share their possessions with others.

Emerging research suggests that daily gratitude practices may have some preventative benefits in warding off coronary artery disease.

With that, it's our Empowered Mama Gift of the day, and today's freebie from Lisa Druxman's The Empowered Mama book is a worksheet on the art of gratitude...