TL;DR: There exists a tool that can instantly reconfigure your neurochemistry. With practice, this tool can lead to a greater sense of emotional wellbeing as well as improved relationships with those around you and yourself. That tool is called gratefulness.
Introduction
Welcome back once again, biohacker. In furtherance of our ‘mindset’ chapter on Upriver, today we introduce you to, or reintroduce you to the power of daily gratefulness practice.
It probably won’t come as a surprise to the vast majority of you, but gratefulness practice can be found as a foundation of lots of belief systems. These systems range from Zen Buddhism all the way to Christianity. Although gratefulness can come in the form of mediation or prayer, that is not to say that one must adopt a religious viewpoint or practice in order to enjoy the benefits of practicing gratefulness daily.
Why?
Gratefulness practice has a crucial part in the biohacker’s arsenal. It works in tandem with meditation to allow you pause in stressful or difficult situations and gives you the power to persevere along with the ability to restructure your experience at hand in a positive way. People from different walks of life, from the former CEO and founder of Apple, all the way to the Dali Lamas of the past and today refer to gratefulness practice as one of the cornerstones to a meaningful and peaceful existence.
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
Epictetus
Ultimately, the greatest benefits of a daily gratefulness practice come from the ability to take circumstances and fundamentally change your conscious experience of them. This process is accomplished by allowing the subconscious mind to adopt a new default setting – a grateful one.
Imagine a situation where you’re stuck at work and you just want to go home and relax. All day people are droning on about how they would rather be doing something else. Furthermore, you’re not particularly fond of your boss and all of your colleagues are mildly frustrating (more so if you’re really unlucky).
If you aren’t practiced in reframing your situation to a positive one via the practice of gratefulness, this situation is horribly annoying and you’re likely hating your life. Conversely, if your default frame is a grateful one, the stimuli may be the same, but your experience of the situation and thus your reality is much different…
Instead of wishing you were elsewhere, you may take the time to be thankful for having passed your interview, which resulted in you being hired for the job that YOU applied for.
Instead of rolling your eyes at one of your coworkers pseudo-philosophical opinions, you may find yourself excited by the opportunity to learn how others see the world around them.
Instead of wishing your boss was ‘easier on you’ and had ‘more of a sense of humor’, maybe you find value in answering to someone who knows how to lead a productive workplace, learn from their mannerisms, and employ better organizational tactics in your own life.
These small moments taken to reframe particular scenarios may just lead to your next big insight that allows you to move upriver at a faster pace than ever before expected.
You never know.
How?
Okay, so perhaps you’re convinced that you ought to start a daily gratefulness practice as either an avenue to enjoying your own life more, or as a conduit to opening your eyes to otherwise unseen opportunities for personal growth. No matter the case, none of this matters if you don’t know how to effectively practice gratefulness.
The first question you may have may be:
Why a DAILY gratefulness practice? Why can’t I just try and be grateful whenever a stressful or challenging situation arises?
The answer is simple.
Imagine if you wanted to be a top long-distance runner, except you never practiced. You simply told yourself that on the day of the race, you’d lace-up, baby powder up, band-aid the ol’ nipples and run your heart out.
Obviously it wouldn’t work out too well. Your body, as well as your mind, needs to learn how to execute.
As the old sports proverb instructs, “practice as you play.” Well, this is true of gratefulness as well. The purpose of practicing gratefulness is so that your mind knows how to adequately change perspectives when necessary – or better yet – when instructed.
We recommend that for your practice regiment, you take a total of apprx. 10 minutes a day. This will be split up into two “sessions”, if you will.
Session 1:
Upon waking, grab a piece of paper (ideally a notepad that will be allocated especially to gratefulness practice).
Take about 6 minutes to write in the following manner:
“3 things I am grateful for…” (This can be literally anything you are genuinely grateful for)
“3 things that would be amazing if they came true today…” (again, anything at all)
“1 affirmation…” (Write out, in the present tense, one amazing thing about yourself or who you are going to become…)
Session 2:
Before going to sleep
Take about 3-5 minutes to write in the following manner:
“3 things that happened to me today that I am grateful took place”
“1 way I could’ve employed gratefulness to reframe circumstances to more positive ones”
When?
Although we covered when to do these daily gratefulness practices above, allow us to explain why we say that they should be done first upon waking and again before retiring to bed.
Between the ages of 0-7 years, children spend the majority of their time in the Theta-brain state. [1] This is the brain state where the majority of learning and behaviour encoding occurs (that is why children of these ages often attempt to impersonate, or very much take after, an older sibling or parent with more established behaviour/routines).
Now, even though we are (hopefully) not between 0-7 years of age, we as adults still enter theta states. They occur reliably in humans in the first 15 minutes after waking, and the last 15 minutes before falling asleep. [2] Long story short, a quick biohack to learning things and encoding things at a faster rate is to practice them during these times.
By ensuring that we undertake gratefulness practice at these times, we provide the optimal circumstances for our brain to adopt these behaviors as both automatic and routine.
Author’s Motivation
I’ve been that dude who gets angry and irritable at relatively insignificant crap. It sucks. It takes away from your relationships, sense of happiness and is mentally draining on you and those around you. In fact, the example utilized above regarding the stressful workplace was more of a personal anecdote than a random image I conjured up. I bet most of you reading, however, can relate. It truly wasn’t until I discovered the benefits of daily gratefulness that I saw how transformative they were.
Conclusion
Although finding raw scientific data is difficult when it comes to quantifying the benefits of gratefulness (especially daily practice), that is not to say it will never exist. For now, attempt it for yourself and see how you can reframe situations to your benefit, as well as to your pleasure. By implementing a regiment that prioritizes daily gratefulness practice, one will rapidly see that whether or not one agrees with big religions and their beliefs, they were right about at least one thing – gratefulness is great. Give it a shot and let us know how it works for you!
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
Willie Nelson
Until next time biohacker, and keep moving Upriver.
REFERENCES
[1] thetahealing.com/thetastate
[2] https://www.thetahealing.com/about-thetahealing/thetahealing-theta-state.html
Great article! Revisited this tonight and gonna try your proposed sessions tomorrow