Do you feel it?
Do you feel the palpable hum of uncertainty and anxiety in the air even as you sip your morning coffee, or scroll through Instagram, or get your family’s dinner on the table? We do too.
As a global society, we are living through a time in our lives that is entirely unprecedented, and it’s affecting not only our physical health, but our mental health as well. If you’re like us, you’ve felt a little more weight on your shoulders over the past several weeks (and if you’re like me, some weight around the belly!), but what can we do? Since we are not talented enough to create a vaccine, we’ve decided to shift one thing we know we have control over – our mindset.
Enter gratitude.
The simple process of taking a few minutes every morning to list the things (or people, or places) you are grateful for, can change the course of your entire day. Studies show that gratitude can impact the physical, psychological, and social aspects of an individual’s well-being. Everything good takes practice though, and shifting a mindset takes time.
Want to play with us?
We’ve created the May Gratitude Project to challenge ourselves to list what we are grateful for each day for an entire month. We commit to posting every day in May on our Twitter account (and sometimes on our FB and Insta too!) what we are grateful for. We hope you’ll join us in this project, and if you do, please use the hashtag #MayGratitudeProject so we can spread the gratitude around! Invite your friends to take part too, imagine what your social media feed would feel like it it was full of gratitude?!
Before we get posting, here are some of the benefits that come from adopting a gratitude mindset, curated from the Chopra Centre.
Physical benefits:
- a stronger immune system
- less bothered by aches and pains
- lower blood pressure
- sleep longer and feel more rested upon awakening
Social benefits:
- more compassionate, generous, and helpful
- more forgiving
- more outgoing
- feel less lonely or isolated
Psychological benefits:
- higher levels of positive emotion
- more alert, alive, awake
- more joy and pleasure
- more optimism and happiness
Source: chopra.com