Rewiring Anxiety Through Gratitude Practice
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VARSHA: [00:00:00] Do you ever feel like you're always on defense in protective mode? Constantly on edge, like your brain automatically jumps to the worst case scenario, catastrophizing. ~Catastrophizing, catastrophizing, ~even small situations.
~But what if I told you that there's a specific type of gratitude practice? Have you ever just thought in your mind like, what if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong? Why am I going on and on? I don't know. Okay. And I've only been talking for two minutes and four. Okay. Lemme just start over.~
~Do you ever feel like you're always on defense? You're in protective mode. You're in protective mode, constantly on edge, like your brain automatically. Jumps to the worst case scenario, like your brain automatically jumps to the worst case scenario, catastrophizing even small situations.~
~But what if I told you there's a way to fix that? There's a specific type of gratitude practice that can literally re~
but what if I told you there's a specific type of gratitude practice that can literally rewire those anxious neural pathways so that you're not always in this defense mode? I mean, it can take a lot of energy and be very draining. And sometimes you don't even know why you feel like you're always on edge, but it's just because things that may have happened in your past, in your childhood, adolescence, and even in adulthood, that has triggered your brain to protect yourself.
Your brain is actually ~designed, ~designed to keep you safe by constantly scanning for threats and problems. This is called negativity bias an evolutionary survival [00:01:00] mechanism where our brains default to looking for what's wrong, what could go wrong, and what might hurt us.
~While these. ~While this kept our ancestors alive in modern life, it creates what neuroscientists call ~default mode network hyperactivity, ~default mode network hyperactivity. Your brain gets stuck in loops of worrying rumination and threat detection even when you're physically safe. And these negative neural highways become like well worn paths in your brain,
Making it easier to slip into stress, anxiety, catastrophizing, and inflammatory thinking patterns. Meanwhile, the neural pathways for positive emotions, calm thinking and noticing what's going well become weaker from lack of use. So if you've been through a lot of trauma as a child, then definitely you're gonna have a more reactive brain because you had to.
Defend yourself, and you had to keep yourself safe because there may not [00:02:00] have been anybody else to do that for you. And even people who haven't been in any like major traumas, a lot of people have been through what we call little t traumas, where we have felt judged, criticized, and and unaccepted. As a result, that feeds this prima tive neural pathway because it tells your brain that, yeah, you need to keep looking for the danger because these situations are happening. Now, the problem is sometimes. Our brains are so wired that way that we start looking at situations and thinking it's something we have to protect ourselves when we don't.
~And that's the negativity and ~that's the negativity bias when we think something is a certain way, but it's not. And sometimes this can ruin our enjoyment of even happy moments, ruin relationships, and ruin our progress in moving forward in goals and things that we wanna achieve. [00:03:00] But there is a way to rewire your brain so that you can work your brain more to that positive neural pathway.
And that's through gratitude journaling.
When you practice specific detailed gratitude, you're literally building ~neuro ~neural pathways through neuroplasticity, this is where your brain has ability to make new connections and allow your brain to think in a way that's different than your old habits.
When you are doing the gratitude, what's happening is you're teaching your brain to see what you're grateful for, so you're seeing the good things in your life. You're not just looking at the negative things.
So this leads me to my daily habit challenge,
I want you to write down three specific gratitudes.
That include , concrete details, not just, I'm grateful for my family, but writing something in detail, like what is it about your family that you're grateful for? Like, for example, I'm grateful for the way my niece laughs as it brings [00:04:00] me joy includes sensory details, like what you saw, what you heard, what you felt.
Capture the moment as if you are really experiencing it, because that increases that neuroplasticity and increases those connections to those positive neural pathways much quicker.
If that seems too overwhelming to get that specific, just start with general things just to get in the habit of doing it, and then you can make it more and more specific and add more imagery as you're thinking about what you're grateful for, but you really wanna feel the emotions when you're talking about what you're grateful for.
That just ~that rewires your brain better, that rewires ~rewires your brain more effectively.
And make it fun. Get a special journal, you know, with a design that inspires you. Even the grocery store has like journals, so you don't even have to go to like a special card shop or anything, but you can find them anywhere. Amazon, of course, but just spend two to three minutes each morning.
Starting your day like that [00:05:00] really sets your intention.
~And this way you'll always, ~this way, you'll be on your way to constantly looking for the great things in life, and you will get yourself out of that defensive mode because your brain will feel safe. You will also be able to navigate through stress with more resilience, and you'll also reduce the inflammation in your brain.
So let me know if you're committed to this daily habit, and if you're comfortable share one specific thing that you're grateful for in the comments. I'd love to read them.
Well stay tuned tomorrow for another daily habit. There are some free downloadables in the description that you may find helpful. Please share. Please follow or subscribe if you're watching the YouTube version.
Thanks for listening or watching, and have a fantastic day.
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