Gratitude is a biohack!
Biohacking refers to the practice of making changes to your lifestyle, diet, or environment to optimize your body & mind’s performance. It involves using various techniques & tools to enhance physical & mental well-being, often with a focus on improving factors like energy, focus & overall health. Biohacking can include things like dietary changes, exercise, supplementation & other lifestyle adjustments with the goal of achieving personal enhancement & optimal functioning.
So with that being said… I find it so fascinating & exciting that research has shown that we can use the practice of showing gratitude as such a biohack. This thus means that practicing gratitude optimizes our body’s & mind’s performance & enhances our physical & mental well-being & improves factors like energy, focus & overall health & helps us to achieve personal enhancement & optimal functioning.
adopt a ‘gratitude attitude’!
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a network of neurons in the brainstem that plays a crucial role in regulating wakefulness, alertness, and attention. It mediates your perceptive awareness and acts as a filter for the information your brain receives. It filters and prioritizes sensory information, influencing what we focus on in our environment. It helps your brain focus on what matters most to you. When you practice gratitude you help the RAS-system in your brain to filter the information around you more efficiently which basically means that you see and experience more of the things that matter to you. The RAS doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative thoughts. It just knows that what you are giving attention to right now is what is important to you. The more we focus on something specific the more the brain will notice it and therefore we will find more of it.
Let’s say for example you are thinking of buying a new vehicle and you decide that you want a blue Mustang. You start doing your research and you look at pictures of blue Mustangs and you read up on all the specs and you talk about it and you continue to think about it and you can now almost envision yourself driving around in this very scarce to find blue Mustang. Finally you buy yourself the blue Mustang. Now all of a sudden everywhere you go you start seeing blue Mustangs and you notice how many of them there are on the road. All of a sudden everyone is driving blue Mustangs! Is this because everyone is so envious of you and now everyone decided to buy the same vehicle as you? No, obviously not! They were always there but you just became more aware of them because that is what you’ve focused on. Your brain has been wired that way! This is what has been going through the RAS system in your brain over and over again.
When you practice gratitude you help the RAS-system in your brain to filter the information around you more efficiently which basically means that you see and experience more of the things that matter to you and that you focus on. The RAS doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative thoughts. It just knows that what you are giving attention to right now is what is important to you and the brain will find more of it. What we appreciate, appreciates (becomes more)! Our brains have been wired for it!
So what we focus on, we begin to see and experience more of. Focus on the negative and you will attract, see and experience more of it and if you focus on what is beautiful, positive, wonderful and fills you with gratitude the more such things you will attract, find and see. The more you will have to be grateful for. Noticing what you are grateful for helps change your attitude and your brain.
So it is obviously advisable that we start being intentional and deliberate with regard to what we choose to focus on! Make sure that you intentionally and deliberately focus on what you want to see & experience more off.
We have been wired for survival and because of this we tend to always see what could go wrong and focus on the negative. If we don’t, a lion might just jump from behind a bush and eat us alive. So if we don’t expect what could possibly go wrong, we might die. We have been wired this way in order to survive. Due to this focusing on the positive and beautiful in life and what we have to be grateful for doesn’t just happen or comes naturally. It truly is something we need to deliberately and intentionally focus on and literally practice. On a daily basis until it becomes more natural. Sometimes this means really digging very deep in order for us to find something beautiful, positive and to be grateful for in between the hustle and bustle and struggles of everyday life.
Developing deliberately & intentionally
Someone once told me that even though we often refer to life as a matter of hills and valleys and ups and downs, that life is actually not exactly like that. Life is rather more like a railway track. With the two parallel tracks of a railway line representing the struggles in life as the one side of the track and the other side representing the beautiful things that also happens in life simultaneously. As we go through struggles parallel to it is always something beautiful and something to be grateful for too. Sometimes we might just have to dig really deep and really look to find it but it is there.
We need to cultivate a gratitude attitude though. It’s something that we develop like we need to develop muscles in the gym. It’s not just going to develop and get stronger by itself. We deliberately and intentionally have to make work of it!
Positive emotions supports ones ability to meet life’s challenges but also optimizes cognitive capacities, sustains constructive and meaningful relationships with others and foster good health. There is a link between positive emotions and a range of favorable health-related and cognitive outcomes.
Gratitude has been shown to also reduce depression, lessen anxiety, relieve stress and improve sleep and focus too!
When it comes to our physical health the strongest vitamin in the world is Vitamin G, or in other words gratitude! Vitamin G is far better than any flu shot or immune system booster on the market!
appreciation
Practicing gratitude is not just a game changer but a brain changer. Practicing gratitude releases serotonin and dopamine that are chemicals in the brain associated with happiness and pleasure. Acknowledging gratitude on the other hand also decreases stress hormones.
A few practical ways to practice gratitude could include writing down something that you are grateful for in the morning, evening or both. You can even dedicate a notebook or journal to gratitude so you can reflect and remind yourself of those moments. Learn to hit the pause button next time you hear yourself saying “thanks” for something and pinpoint precisely what you are thankful for. Practice deliberately redirecting your thoughts when you feel negative or frustrated and take a step back and shift your focus to a positive aspect of the situation. Get into the habit of telling people why you are thankful for them and appreciate them.
What we appreciate, appreciates!