Stressed Out? Try This!
Stress can do one of two things… it can fuel your physical and mental performance, or it can SQUASH it.
Since you can’t avoid stressful situations in life, the trick is to make sure your body is responding in a way to help you instead of hurting you.
Researchers have recently identified a simple, truly revolutionary way to improve how your body responds to stress.
The great part is that not only can it boost your mental and physical performance within the stressful situation itself… but it can also help improve your physical health, emotional wellbeing, and your relationships to boot.
Researchers created a stressful environment with groups of people to see how expressing gratitude impacts someone’s stress response.
When given a challenging task, people respond in one of two ways:
- With a challenge response, which causes your heart to pump more blood, boosting your neurological response.
- With a threat response, which causes your heart to pump less blood, the vasculature to constrict, and blood flow to your periphery to be reduced… causing performance to decrease.
One response boosts performance, while the other hinders it—and the simple act of expressing gratitude—or being the recipient of it and feeling appreciated—could make all the difference.
The results showed that when teammates expressed gratitude to one another prior to doing the stressful task, their threat response was essentially eliminated.
In other words, they had a better heart-related stress response.
This study specifically evaluated people with casual work-type relationships in which individuals are working together to accomplish a common goal.
But the beneficial effects of giving and receiving gratitude don’t begin and end at work or school.
Whatever situation you find yourself in—whether it’s with family members, church members, community members, or work, try to be intentional about expressing gratitude to the people in your life.
Not only will it be good for them, but you’ll reap plenty of rewards as well.
Gratitude can beneficially impact many areas of your health—both emotionally and physically.
In fact, I wrote an entire article about the health benefits of gratitude in the most recent issue of my newsletter. Click here to read more.
