Give thanks for your life — and you’ll live a longer life! (EP10)

Today’s Brain Booster is: Appreciate to elevate your thinking, and recognise that gratitude is more than a platitude. It’s really unfortunate that in today’s hashtag world, the notion of practising gratitude, and appreciating our blessings, has become hackneyed and superficial. Yet behind the cliches, appreciation and gratitude boost our brain in profound and distinct ways.So today’s episode will be a fascinating exploration of the difference between appreciation and gratitude, and how they can help us build a better brain. We live in a world that constantly trains our attention toward what’s wrong. Turn on the news — conflict. Scroll social media — it’s easy to jump to negative comparisons. Check your inbox — problems to solve.Without realising it, our brain becomes exquisitely skilled at spotting flaws, threats and mistakes. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a survival feature. Our ancestors did not survive by admiring sunsets; they survived by spotting snakes. So our brain is wired to scan for problems.But what happens when that survival setting becomes our default way of seeing everything? We become mentally tired, less creative, more reactive, and ironically, less effective at solving the very problems we’re focused on.The good news is that there’s a really simple skill that can turn things around and improve how our brain functions. That skill is appreciation. Hence today’s Brain-Booster is appreciate to elevate your thinking.Today’s Health Headline is: Gratitude delays the grave! Literally. Gratitude — expressing thanks for someone or something — adds years to your life. How?A Harvard study published in 2024 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, followed almost 50 000 nurses (49 275 to be precise) with an average age of 79, for over 3 years. The researchers wanted to answer the question: Do people who notice and feel grateful for positive experiences more frequently, tend to live longer?What did they find? The nurses who felt the most grateful — those in the top third of participants — had a 9% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who scored in the lowest third of participants. Specifically in relation to heart disease, the more grateful they were, the less likely they were to die of a heart attack or stroke. Wow!What’s missing from modern medicine is incorporating gratitude into standard medical care.Gratitude improves the functioning of our immune system, and reduces chronic inflammation, hence it’s been found to improve depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain, heart health and arthritis. Another wow!Today’s Whether Report is a common scenario:I’ve been listening to your podcast from the very start and I absolutely love it. However I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the things I need to do to get my health on track. Not only do I need to overhaul my diet, exercise more, and get better sleep, you’ve made me aware that I have a lot of conflicts in my life, and it’s definitely causing me ongoing stress. I’d like to know whether you can help me overcome my overwhelm, and tell me where to start. It feels impossible to tackle everything in the TRUE MEDICINES acronym. I’d be very grateful for any advice.Resources: https://drhelenapopovic.com/podcast/