‘How Thanksgiving can Save your Life’ by Ken McCarthy

In his latest email Ken McCarthy talks on “How Thanksgiving can Save your Life” [‘System Seminar’]

Ken says , “”Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

My hero, Benjamin Franklin said that, but he could have easily been talking about another practice…gratitude.

I don’t know who originally cooked up the American holiday of ‘Thanksgiving’ but it is a spectacularly good idea. A day set aside to give thanks. Brilliant.

Gratitude seems to be a favorite subject of the wise. Buddha called it ‘an attribute of noble persons.’ In the Christian world ‘Eucharist’ is the Greek word for giving thanks.

Even non-religious savants like the Roman statesman Cicero and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had good things to say about gratitude. Cicero called it ‘the parent of all
other virtues’ and Nietzsche called it ‘the essence of all beautiful art.’

*** Discover the scientific way to become more healthy, smarter and more energetic ***

Science – in the form of research data gathered by Robert A.Simmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis – recently demonstrated that the regular
practice of thankfulness has a definite and positive transformative effect on people’s lives.

Here’s the experiment Simmons conducted. He took two groups of people: a control group that did nothing and a second group who spent a few minutes once a week jotting down who
they should thank and for what.

Here’s what Simmons found: In comparison with the control group, the group that kept a weekly ‘thank you’ journal “exercised regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms,
felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the upcoming week.”

In a second experiment, he introduced something called a ‘daily gratitude intervention’ in which the test group spent a little time every day on focused gratitude. This group demonstrated “higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy.” Makes sense. Gratitude is the reliving of positive memories and a workout of positive emotions. That’s got to be good for your brain chemistry.

*** A modest proposal ***

As the year draws to a close, many businesses draw up an annual report tracing their accomplishments over the past year and their plans for the coming year. It’s a great
practice and well worth the time invested.

How about creating an annual report written from the point of view of gratitude? Making a detailed listing of all the things that went right this year? All the interesting new people you met, the relationships you strengthened, the breakthroughs in understanding you had. And when you’re making your list of people and things to be thankful for, don’t forget a very important person…you.

In my experience, we’re all pretty good at being hard on ourselves. So this year, after you’ve thanked all the people who’ve made you life richer this year, take a look at your own efforts – your diligence, your courage, your kindness – and remember to pat yourself on the back a bit too.

Your best is yet to come.”

Ken

*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Ken McCarthy for granting permission to reprint this email.