The Importance of Gratitude

It's Mindset Monday again!

Why is Gratitude so fundamental for us and why is it a big part of what we teach our clients? Because gratitude works (stats below).

Practicing gratitude is one of Real Frequency's core values and with that, helps ground us in difficult times. Some of our teammates practice gratitude by paying tribute those for whom they are grateful or by reminding themselves to practice gratitude through tattoos. The images here are some of our team's body art images that remind their owners to remain grateful for what and who they have in their lives.

Why again? Because gratitude is a great way to take control of our mental health.

One piece of strong documentation around how this works is found in the 2015 article "Gratitude is Good Medicine" that appeared on the UC Davis Medical Center site. This piece listed out some of the health benefits of being systematic and disciplined in the practice of #gratitude. These include:

- Keeping a gratitude diary for two weeks produced sustained reductions in perceived stress (28 percent) and depression (16 percent) in health-care practitioners.
- Gratitude is related to 23 percent lower levels of stress hormones (cortisol).
- Practicing gratitude led to a 7-percent reduction in biomarkers of inflammation in patients with congestive heart failure.
- Two gratitude activities (counting blessings and gratitude letter writing) reduced the risk of depression in at-risk patients by 41 percent over a six month period.
-A daily gratitude practice can decelerate the effects of neurodegeneration (as measured by a 9 percent increase in verbal fluency) that occurs with increasing age.

So on this Mindset Monday (and everyday really), please take some time to reflect on the things for which you are grateful. It'll help you put things in perspective and will help you chip away at the stress of daily life.