 Most of us are aware of the benefits of practicing gratitude, but did you know that science recently has helped prove that age-old adage that a grateful heart is indeed a healthier heart? For this co-creative time together, hours and hours, we're going to be sharing information about the science and spirituality aspects of gratitude. Hi, I'm Tiffany Barsotti, and I operate in the world as a spiritual counselor and a medical intuitive, helping practitioners and laypersons move forward using conscious technology and integrative skills. My name is Paul Mills. I'm a professor of public health and behavioral medicine at the University of California at San Diego and also a director of research for the Deepak Chopra Foundation. As a couple, we cross over in the fields of science and spirituality. Paul is a trained scientist. I am a theologian that has no dogma. And together, we seek to add value to your life, not just more content. So welcome to the Heal and Thrive podcast or video cast. We're in the final month of the year and typically it's a time where we review. We review what the year has brought, what has happened, and it's our desire to share some of the, once again, the science and the spiritual aspects of gratitude as well as to offer a practice with how it is that we can utilize this virtue, the building of the virtue of gratitude. The year can, when we do this year review, oftentimes, because it just happens sort of by default, it can look at all of the different stressors. We might be going through some stress right now. We might be dealing with financial conditions or family conditions or other challenges. And this conversation is meant to facilitate a beautiful discussion about what gratitude, the practice of gratitude can do for you and as a way of shifting our inner chemistry as well as the whole field around us, which makes it a little easier to be with family. Well, you mentioned a moment ago, Tiff, about stressors and that reminded me, some years ago, I was given a presentation on gratitude at the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, California. And this was in a broader conference on bringing the fields of integrated medicine into the active military hospitals as well as the VA system. When I finished my presentation on gratitude, a few people lined up to the microphone to ask questions. And one of them actually wasn't a question. It was a comment. And this was one of the healthcare providers there. And she told me that just some weeks earlier, she had instituted for some of her patients for them to begin to keep a gratitude journal. And what that meant is she told them that most days of the week, right down in the journal, a few things that you feel grateful for. And even though it had only been a few weeks so far, the patients were reporting back to her that it had really helped them deal with the stress. The stress broadly of their lives, yes, but more specifically, just the stress of the medical condition that they've been carrying for many, many years. So doing the gratitude practice began to help them in their mind and perhaps in their spiritual level too to begin to cope better with the stressors of daily living. And I remember when you were featured on NPR for this, National Public Radio and Time Magazine covered it. There was a lot of coverage on this breakthrough science. And what was so astounding to me is that it makes sense from a mindset and emotional point of view. But when I was hearing the results, and obviously you and I spoke about this, but your presentation on the actual physiological measures, that's a bit mind-blowing. Can you explain that a little bit more, please? Sure. I was just mentioning some of the findings regarding stress even for this healthcare provider. So stress is something more subjective. I think that's what you're getting at. But are there any findings related to biology? And indeed, there are. And we've conducted quite a few studies in that area. So let's see which ones to share initially. We did research on cardiac patients at the University of California, San Diego. And some of our research was in collaboration with scientists and clinicians in Scotland and Tehran and also in Spain. So it's been very interdisciplinary and interinstitutional research. But the cardiac patients, you might remember, in addition to evaluating when they practiced gratitude, how they were doing in terms of stress, how they were doing in terms of sleep, anxiety, we also did measure cardiac physiology, and we also drew blood. And essentially after two months of practicing gratitude, keeping that journal, these patients had about a 22% reduction in inflammatory biomarkers in their peripheral bloodstream, which was really quite remarkable. And also the heart rate variability and measure of just the, say, autonomic nervous system drive to the heart was improved. So there's some physiology for you. That is indeed some physiology. It's quite astounding to think about that. And I know you also did some work also with the soldiers, but there's something I want to bring up before you speak about that. And that is that we have a default mode network in our brain. It's actually several systems that are connected in the brain. And they can hijack our behavior to be in rumination and sort of like a hamster on a wheel of just feeling this sense of stress and overwhelm and worry. And the thing that's really interesting is that if our default program is only set to that, will it tend to get more of the same thing? Different situation, different people, but a lot of it has to do with our internal wiring. So the good news is, is that it's totally programmable. And I think that's also some of what is so magical about when we introduce an actual new habit or behavior or a technique or process that we begin to employ, we can see the neuroplasticity be able to be our friend in this case. Because neuroplasticity can also not be your friend in the same way that the default mode network just sort of does what it does. But it's up to us to be the chooser of our reality as far as that's concerned. So can you say, because the soldiers are also an amazing set of findings. Yeah, but I want to add to what you're just saying about the default mode network. Reminds me, there was a study or two published a couple of years ago where they had people practicing gratitude and then they put them in the FMRI scanner, also did some EG work. And essentially they were able to find that the practice of gratitude helped reduce the noise of the default mode network. And as you're speaking, it reminded me that that made sense to me. Because the default mode network, I think in part is related to just the sense of egotism and how strong that inner dialogue with oneself is going. And I appreciated Deepak Chopra once said that it's impossible to have egotism and gratitude at the same time. And what's beautiful about that insight is that it does give us insight that gratitude is a way to reduce our inner chatter and also just that overburden of egotism. Not that we're eliminating the ego, that's not possible and it's not wanted. But egotism is desirable to lesson and gratitude by expanding our heart and minds to things beyond ourselves than lessons that sense of egotism. So about the soldiers. Yeah, we did study soldiers in a gratitude study. This was several hundred and this was at a university in Tehran. And essentially what we're able to show is that another way that gratitude supports mental health and this is back to the stressor idea, it changes our perception of stress. It changes what might have been a stressor for us once upon a time with the practice of gratitude is no longer seen as a stressor or it's seen as less of a stressor. And when we have less stress in our psyche, of course that does improve mental health. So this was something that was quite striking and I think a beautiful insight with these soldiers is that those who had more of a trait, gratitude also perceived less stress in their lives even though they were experiencing the same things that all soldiers typically experience which obviously in combat is stressful but even just often in training and so forth is very stressful. This is so beautiful. So it brings us right into the tool and the practice and some of this of what we're going to share with you right now was inspired by Roger Hamilton and I enjoy his work and you can look him up. The point is that given what you just said about mindset and being choosers about what it is that we feel about something, we're essentially the choice maker. We're the ones driving our own life experiences. We're driving our own bus so to speak. So as we embark on this kind of automatic review that happens, let's use our 2020 hindsight vision to bring gratitude to no matter what memory may be coming up, no matter what stressor could be in that review process. When we think about what didn't work, if you have the mindset of immediately saying thank you, even though we might still be in sort of an agitation of something that went on, there's the act of even saying thank you sometimes when you don't even know why you're saying it, that it starts to move us in a healthier direction. And so I invite you to do this. I do it all the time for myself. I catch myself in like getting into a little bit of complaining pants and then I will go Tiffany say thank you. And it's like it brings almost this state of neutrality. That's actually what happens. There's an equanimity that happens and I'll stop judging. So I invite us to share in this practice because imagine if we were all doing this and how much more peaceful and less complaining even in our heads, even if it's not to the outside world. So our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to get out of this so-called sort of negative programming of how it is that we've been seeing something and just say thank you while in that little time, while we're still unpacking what the benefit of that situation was. Because I don't know about you but I tend to believe and I believe you do too that everything that happens in our life is happening for our benefit. It just may take a little time to figure out what the heck was the benefit to ex-situation, right? So finding that blessing that's in the so-called curse. So the mission, should you choose to accept it, when you're doing that natural review and you trip onto something that may be bringing a stressor, say thank you and then sit with the discomfort for a moment of what was it that I was intending to teach myself? What was it that that whole situation was about so that you can get to where the gratitude actually is? And that's really a mindset shift and it's super powerful. Once you get it employed and get it more built into a habit within the default mode network. It's not going to happen overnight but it does happen in time and it happens quicker than you think. Time has sped up, astrophysics has proved it. So we've got that on our side. Anything that you'd like to add? Well, when you were speaking about judgment, my thought went to, judgment is one of those, we could call it one of those mind killers, meaning judgment is what? What is it? Well, a dear friend said once that judgment is observation without love. So essentially any time we're judging anything about ourselves, our lives, things we've done for others or others have done to us, etc., etc., with judgment, we're looking at the situation without love. I think back to gratitude. Gratitude, since it helps us step out of our little mind somewhat, then it helps us move away from judgment. And once you're out of judgment, then we're naturally moving back into the space of love, which is our natural inheritance. Yes, beautiful. I love that. Thank you. All right. So let's employ this. Let's put it to work and give us your comments. How has it worked out for you? What has shifted? What did you notice in your body? What did you notice change in your relationship? We'd love to engage with you. Relationships. All right. So many blessings in this holiday time. Let's stay positive and... Grateful. Grateful. Have a wonderful, enjoyable time. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.