Thanksgiving as a Wellness Practice (Page 2)

In honor of Thanksgiving, here are some ways to work more gratitude into your life by anchoring it into your day:

Try HeartMath’s Quick Coherence® Technique. Create a coherent state in about a minute using three simple, but powerful steps. To really get the shift, your effort needs to be intentional and genuine. When you get to Step 3, using thoughts of gratitude to create a Heart Feeling is one of the easiest ways to make the shift. Think of your pet, a sunset, a time in nature, or a loved one. Feel genuine appreciation for them.

Take a few breaks during the day for gratitude, like on your way home from work and before going to sleep. It takes just two minutes and can have a huge effect on balancing your physiology.

Make a list of appreciations and, each morning and night, choose one or two things to keep in your heart. Keep your list by the computer or wherever you are during the day, and when you find yourself in a moment of stress, scan it and see which item evokes that feeling of appreciation for you quickly. It might only take 10-30 seconds and it can completely change a stressful day to one of even flow.

Take a problem in your life that you’re trying to resolve and find three things to appreciate about it. Ask your heart. One could be that it could be worse. Feel that genuinely. Consider that there may be a treasure underneath – an opportunity in the problem. When you do this, it widens your perspective and creates some coherence into your approach.

Steer clear of mentally churning about your stressors if you want to feel better fast because this takes you into your left-brain and thinking, which does not activate the magic of heart coherence, which sincere heart feeling does.