Researchers have begun to look into gratitude and thankfulness. They’re finding that with age, it may be easier to feel grateful. There is an area in the brain that is involved with memory and emotional attachment. As we age it responds less to negative information. This helps our emotions to become more positive. Positive emotions don’t necessarily lead to more gratitude and thankfulness but they do help.
Why is it important to have and to show your gratitude?
- Gratefulness is good for your health. It helps to cut stress and the inflammation that stress causes in your body.
- Gratefulness can benefit your immune system as well as your heart.
- When you are grateful it means that you recognize emotions within yourself and others.
- Gratitude helps you to be happy. When you are grateful for things in life, whether good or bad, it can change your life for the better.
Gratitude reminds you of what is truly important in life. It also helps us to not take things for granted. Those of us in the western hemisphere, in particular, have access to so many things that the rest of the world doesn’t have. Spend less time focusing on the superficial and more time remembering what really matters the most. So many illnesses and diseases are made much worse by stress. Gratitude can make your problems seems like much less than they really are.
Gratitude is like karma. What you give out, you get back. The more you focus on the good things you have in life, the more good things you seem to have. One man from Michigan has learned about gratitude and thankfulness through a good deed that was done by a total stranger. He’s grateful for the actions that turned a regular day for his father into a special day. To read the story, click here.
