Practise gratitude for mental and physical health
Strap: Being grateful leads to acceptance and contentment
By Mickey Mehta
It is said in the Bhagavad Gita, “Yadrccha-labha-santusto dvandvatito
vimatsarah.” ‘You should have absolute contentment with whatever you have, and with
contentment should come gratitude. If you are discontent, how can you be
grateful? And if you are not grateful, how can there be grace?”
Gratitude helps one take the world as it is and enables you to accept things
the way they are. You learn to receive the good with the bad and the evil
with the divine. Gratitude helps you deal with love with misery and endure
life with all its challenges and beauty. You can only be grateful when there is humility and no ego. Ego constricts and restricts. Expressing gratitude is a virtue of accepting the grace of life with acts of empathy and compassion.
When we are grateful for what we have and what we have received from the Almighty, we feel a surge of joy for the circumstances and experiences in our lives. A feeling of peace and contentment flows within.
Gratitude releases dopamine and serotonin, the two most critical feel-good neurotransmitters that enhance our mood and assist us in feeling happy from within. We need a constant flow of these neurotransmitters.
By feeling gratitude constantly, we can be in psychological and emotional
harmony. When your heartbeat is in rhythm with the orchestration of your being, your musculoskeletal structure, endocrine system, digestive system and nervous system all get harmonized. And when we achieve equilibrium, it gives rise to homeostasis, which gives rise to psychological and emotional soundness.
The hypothalamus plays the most crucial role in keeping the body in a state of homeostasis. It connects the mind and the body. Our emotional and physiological, and psychological conditions are weaved into the hypothalamus.
Gratitude activates the hypothalamus, thus leaving you in a state of expanded awareness. The release that takes place helps you to sleep longer and deeper. You wake up feeling energetic and refreshed. This triggering of the hypothalamus by feeling grateful also helps in reducing the stress hormones, thereby reducing depression and anxiety.
In one of her publications, Emily Fletcher stated that gratitude acts as a “natural antidepressant.” Many souls who have lived in gratitude have experienced divine intervention in their most challenging moments. Being grateful builds a magnetic field around you that attracts the abundance and blessings of the divine. Live in a state of gratitude and let the gifts of the Universe enter your life.
Dr Mickey Mehta is a leading holistic health guru and corporate life coach.