This week with Sweet Life Wellness, we are journeying into the topic of thankfulness and how it can help lower the stress we face in everyday life. Stress has such a significant impact on our bodies’ health and how we manage weight to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Follow along with Gaithersburg dietitian Kay Loughrey as she explains how stress impacts our bodies, how thankfulness can reduce stress, as well as tips to making thankfulness a regular practice!
Stress’s Impact on Weight and the Body
Stress can impact the body in serious ways including affecting our physical body, our emotional state, as well as our normal behaviors. Physically, stress can cause severe and recurring headaches, digestive tract concerns, muscle aches, and sleep disruption. Also, stress causes physical responses that impact your body’s ability to prevent or manage diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Emotionally, stress can bring higher levels of negative emotions including higher anxieties, decrease in motivation, and deeper levels of sadness. Stress will also create a shift in your behavior and can impact how often you exercise, interact with people, or use substances as a coping mechanism. Additionally, stress has been known to impact how much food you eat, either overeating or undereating.
But there is good news! The impacts from the stress we face can be lowered through various calming practices! Some of the well-known calming practices include breathing exercises, guided imagery, and muscle relaxation. Yet there is one practice that is not as commonly discussed and that is thankfulness, or as some researchers title it, gratitude! Keep reading to learn more!
How Thankfulness Lowers Stress
Thankfulness is a positive thinking practice which is why it helps reduce stress. Research shows that positive thinking increases life expectancy, lowers depression, and helps prevent illnesses. Additionally, positive thinking also reduces cancer, heart, and respiratory disease risks. Studies have stated that thankfulness begins with the smallest positive things in your life and then extends into the big events of your life!
Ways to practice Thankfulness
- Pick 3 unique things you are thankful for each morning! Record them and why they make you feel grateful in a thankful journal.
- Create a thankful journal! A thankful journal is a collection of all you are thankful for. Your thankful items can take the form of lists, pictures you draw, stories, or any other creative design!
- In the fall season, create a thankful pumpkin! Each day, add a few things you are thankful for! This is even more fun if done with a group of people, such as a group of coworkers or family members.
- Instead of complaining, be thankful! This will take some practice to develop a habit, but in movements of frustration or disappointment make a conscious effort to be thankful instead of complaining!
- Tell others you are thankful for them! One of the kindest things we can do to help lower other’s stress this season is to tell them we are thankful for them!
Although stress can create damaging impacts on our body, weight, and health, that impact can be lessened through the practice of thankfulness! With the tips from Sweet Life Wellness today, you will be well on your way to making thankfulness increasingly more a part of your everyday life as you keep growing in your pursuit of the healthiest you! Learn more about lowering stress in another blog from Sweet Life Wellness here!
Resources
National Institute of Mental Health. “I’m So Stressed Out! Fact Sheet.” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/so-stressed-out-fact-sheet. Accessed October 30, 2023.
Mayo Clinic. “Stress Management.” https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950?p=1. February 3, 2022. Accessed October 30, 2023.
National Library of Medicine. “Stress.” MedlinePlus. https://medlineplus.gov/stress.html Updated October 20, 2023. Accessed October 30, 2023.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Relaxation Techniques: What You Need to Know.” https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/relaxation-techniques-what-you-need-to-know. Updated June 2021. Accessed October 30, 2023.
Mayo Clinic. “Stress Management.” https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987?p=1. August 10, 2023. Accessed October 30, 2023.
Department of Health and Human Services. “Practicing Gratitude – Ways to Improve Positivity.” News In Health. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2019/03/practicing-gratitude#:~:text=Taking%20the%20time%20to%20feel,fewer%20signs%20of%20heart%20disease. March 2019. Accessed October 30, 2023.
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Kay Loughrey, MPH, RDN, LDN
Transformational Speaker, Breakthrough Coach, Nutritionist-Dietitian
Karis N. Hicks
North Carolina Central University
M.S. – Nutrition Studies
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