#181: Expressing Gratitude, How Appreciation Will Transforms Your Life

In this episode, we dive into the transformative power of gratitude. Expressing thankfulness isn’t just a feel-good practice; it's scientifically proven to improve mental and physical health, boost immunity, and even enhance weight loss efforts. But how can gratitude impact your everyday decisions, stress levels, and overall well-being?

Learn practical ways to make gratitude a daily habit, from journaling to mindful reflection, and discover how this practice can reduce stress eating, improve sleep, and help you create realistic goals. By the end of this episode, you’ll have the tools to shift your mindset and appreciate the small victories that pave the way for long-term success. 

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Transcript

#181: Expressing Gratitude, How Appreciation Will Transforms Your Life

[00:00:00] So expressing gratitude is associated with a whole pile of health benefits. It is, works on your mental and your physical health. And studies show that feeling thankful, , can improve your sleep, your mood, and your immunity. Can, , decrease depression, anxiety, , difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease as well as, getting rid of negative emotions and such as guilt and shame.

Now you may have heard it before because I'd heard so much about gratitude and I just thought, I just thought it was a pile of crap to be honest. And I couldn't really understand what everyone was, , really going on about. And when I started a gratitude, like a practice of expressing, , gratitude and all of that and it was amazing , how my thoughts changed, and , I, I did the task that I'm going to get you guys to do of expressing gratitude, I had to choose five things a day, what I was grateful for.[00:01:00] 

And the more regularly you do it, it starts to become an everyday practice. So, I, and now continually as always thinking throughout my whole day of what I'm grateful for, what I'm, what I appreciate, and it's a really, it's a really, really nice feeling. , there's so many studies about how it can help you regulate stress, how, it can help with the cortisol levels.

It's just, it's, it's, it's a really, really good practice to something to get into. And, when we realize and appreciate all the things that we have around us, we, we have a lot and we have more than you think to be thankful for. And, yes, , in, I know in everyone's life, there's things where life can get us down.

The things where we feel like there's nothing, no way out, or if things feel impossible, we can, we can start to think. Just think and express our gratitude towards something and it can be for basic like because we tend to take our life for granted Or things that we already have things that we are expected I tend [00:02:00] to I tend to look back a lot enough and remind myself of where I wanted to be and because we keep setting this bar higher and higher and higher and you realize like Oh God, I, I'm actually doing what I used to now, what I think is impossible.

And I was just reflecting this morning on, I had to come back from a gym and I came back and I was driving in the car and I was thinking, Oh, when I used to work in an office, This was my ideal day. I dropped the kids off at school. I went, I had a coffee and I went, I went to the gym and now come back to start work.

So that, that, that's my ideal day. And before I used, before I thought it was impossible because I thought I had to work in an office. I thought I had to work for somebody else. So, so it was really great to express gratitude or to think about where you were, , or where you used to be as to where you are now.

You're always better than what you think you are. So it's a, it's a really, really nice practice. And it goes a long way, a lot further than what you probably think or give it credit for. I'm going to give you some examples now of how gratitude [00:03:00] can help you with your weight loss. So number one, , it can, stop you stress eating, by reducing your stress levels.

It's considered by, to take the time to express gratitude, towards the things that make you happy on a daily basis, you'll be more successful, to help your body in reducing stress levels. It means that you will tend to not stress eat as much because when we feel stressed, we lots of us, and we may have recognized that this is part of something that you do, you might tend to be someone that goes towards food.

I know some people go the other way and not eat. But it can, when we're reducing our stress, we can tend to not over, and it, it happens all the time that we either , we end up just when we're feeling stress. And I, I still recognize that I do it. Again, because we're not perfect, I've recognized that I do it in myself.

 I, I don't. Turn it into days worth, , you might recognize, Oh, I was feeling a bit stressed or I wasn't organized. And I tended to, I tended to, , just [00:04:00] go for this type of food, or, , I'd grab something quick or, I remember when my, my papa was diagnosed with cancer, I went out and bought chocolate and again, it's totally fine.

 When we are, if you're in this stress state all the time, , expressing gratitude can help reduce that stress state and, can hope will stop you from overeating on food. It can also, so my, the second way is can help you make better decisions about your food. So by practicing gratitude, you'll start to notice, and you'll start to notice some decisions that may be harmful or not per, not decisions aligned with where you want to be that you're making, especially with your eating habits.

So when we start recognizing that, when we are maybe not feeling great about ourselves, and that we tend to be going for these certain foods that we feel are going to give us a pick me up. When we start to feel better about ourselves, you will tend to not go for those foods. So you're already going and making choices that are more aligned with where you [00:05:00] want to be.

When we are expressing gratitude and you can actually learn to appreciate your food and maybe it will, with reducing our stress and slowing it down, it will stop us from, , we can, eating it really quickly and not even taking the time to appreciate it. When we are in this stress state and when we're maybe not feeling the best about ourselves, we can tend to eat really fast if you're always on the go.

 We're not taking the time to actually enjoy our food, or appreciate it or take it in what we're having. And, sometimes that we notice that you might be eating all this stuff and not even know, not even really, really taste it. We can, when we're expressing gratitude for an appreciating our food.

We appreciating that in this food is fueling our body. It is going to give us the desired goal that we have. And it is, it is a really nice thing to start to recognize. So expressing gratitude will help you start to really set goals. But because when we are practicing [00:06:00] appreciation and, you will start to feel better about yourself and you'll learn to love yourself and, Love your body, but not only your body, your mind also.

And you'll learn to love all the things about you, your character. You will start to feel eager to set really realistic goals because we're feeling a lot better about ourselves. We're going to set these more realistic goals as to, what we really want to achieve. It will help you initially set the goal and start setting it.

And then, practicing gratitude is going to really help you to achieving the goal by practicing gratitude. It can help you to create and stick to a proper exercise regime. So when you feel like you, exercise is a crucial part of losing weight or, , achieving a, Achieving a, a goal or a health and wellness goal exercise is a part of it and it is important to find the exercise that works for you.

But when we express gratitude, we are not working out because we feel we have to. We are working out because, you would change the meaning of why you're [00:07:00] working out. So you might be working out because, , you want to move better. Again, this comes back to working out your why, or you want to move better.

You're working out because you want to, it gives you more energy. You want to, you want to make sure that you can keep up with your kids. So, so when you express gratitude about your exercise or, or your routine or what you're doing, it is going to help you in, in sticking to it because you're not sticking to it because you want to lose weight and you're not sticking to it for something negative.

You're sticking to it because of the benefits of how good it can be for you and your body. Again, the expressing the gratitude will really help you stick to your routine of your preparing your food and your eating. I'm always thankful for having, being prepared with my food and , and because that I appreciate so much of how it makes me feel.

I make these choices because I make the choices to prepare my food or to eat this because because it makes me feel good. And I have taken [00:08:00] the time to recognize that. And when we're expressing gratitude, we tend to feel more powerful and it strengthens your willpower, , to really understand why you're doing these things that you're not just doing them because somebody told you to, they're doing them for you.

And that's what we want. I want you to be doing stuff for yourself. Not for someone else. And when you're doing it for you, and you can see the benefits, then you're more likely to sleep. My last way of how expressing gratitude can help you with your weight loss is it, it'll help you sleep better. So sleep is one of the number one things that we want to focus on when we are looking to lose weight.

To feel, have more energy and feel good about ourselves. But it's really nice. When I first started practicing gratitude, I started I did it before bed and I would write down things in my journal of, what I was great grateful for. And it was really nice to, to, to, to do that just before I went to sleep because you went to sleep thinking about those things and in a more positive light.

[00:09:00] And so when sleep is probably, when we have more sleep, we tend to have lower stress levels. And, when we have lower stress levels, then we tend to be going to not over eating, , over exercising. and all of those things. And, so expressing gratitude is, it's really important and it helps with your sleep.

And it's really important when we are expressing gratitude to just think of how far, how these little things can just go such a long way. So you think how you feel if somebody holds the door open for you, you think how you feel if, if you hold the door open for somebody, or if you buy a coffee for the cup.

behind you, in the coffee queue or you offer to pay, like how great that makes you feel, but how good can it make that person feel? And sometimes this little kind gesture or this little thing that you've just done could make somebody's whole day. Thank you. There's lots of jobs that tend to be, very thankless and very, , disexpected.

And sometimes people have sent me messages [00:10:00] saying, I just want to show you how much I'm appreciated and blah, blah, blah. And it's really lovely. And it makes your day to hear that. So expressing gratitude for yourself, but, but for other people as well is, is, is really, really nice thing. So what I want you to start to do is over the next, I want you to name five things a night.

I want you to write them in your journal of what you are grateful for. And, hopefully you will keep this up longer than a week, but I want you to think about, daily, what your things, what are you grateful for and why? So, , so when we start to think about this, I want you to think about how, this practice.

It goes into your day. So how it influences the rest of your day. And, so how does it make you feel when you write these things down? Are we recognizing that we are grateful for all the things around us? , did you start to realize anything that you didn't already know about yourself? Did anything unexpected come up when you started to think of what you were grateful for?

, sometimes when I struggled and it was just [00:11:00] realizing that I have a house and like just, just the basic things like I have a house and a car and and, and those things. And, I really wanted to think, can you start practicing this more regularly in your life? So we want to start practicing gratitude more regularly and think about it.

I think all the time, I'm so grateful for this. I'm so grateful for this. And it, it just grounds me a little bit and it's, it's a really good feeling. So I really want, I really want you to start doing this and you start seeing how it really, really changes everything when we're being more, , expressing more gratitude.