NIFS Healthy Living Blog

Gratitude could be defined as recognizing and appreciating the “good” things in our lives, regardless of challenges that come up. Gratitude is a positive emotion that aligns with a growth mindset. Practicing this emotion can benefit our sense of well-being by reminding us of the strengths, resources, and support systems in our lives. These positive aspects of our day-to-day empower us and remind us of many gifts we have. Positive thinking and gratitude can lead to an increased sense of self-efficacy and resiliency against setbacks. In other words, positive thinking leads to positive results.

Don’t Focus on the “Bad”

Focusing on the negative aspects of the day can be an avoidable trap. Life constantly evolves with new challenges and often distracts us from the things that make us happy. If we aren’t mindful of our thought habits, we may follow a pattern of negative thinking. Negative thinking and self-criticism build up over time and can detract fromthe overall sense of happiness and fulfillment. Negativity may affect performance, may diminish morale, and may contribute long-term to the progression of disorders such as anxiety and depression. Focusing on the “bad” can decrease our perception of happiness and ultimately lead to a more fixed mindset. Appreciating the better things in life steers our thoughts and emotions towards progression and growth, rather than fixating on the negative aspects. In 1998, Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, started the discussion on positive psychology, which has evolved over the years. The P.E.R.M.A. model of well-being was later developed from his original theories. P.E.R.M.A is an acronym for positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement. This theory of positive psychology states that by acknowledging these positive aspects in our lives, we feed a deeper sense of intrinsic well-being.

Why is it important to practice gratitude?

Feeling gratitude, or practicing it intentionally, can benefit our sense of happiness because we train our thoughts to entertain aspects of P.E.R.M.A. These thoughts serve our own greater good and connect us back to relationships, meaning, and life purpose. These thoughts are focused on things we value, regardless of the circumstances we are in.

New challenges are approached with optimism as we make positive thinking habitual. Positive emotions, in a way, “strengthen” our mind by reinforcing our sense of contentment in ourselves and our surroundings. The practice of intentional positive thinking builds up mental resiliency to new challenges. Resiliency leads to approaching problems as a relative event, rather than an innate issue.

Gratitude can be a choice to acknowledge what is going well and move past the things that detract from our happiness. Gradually, positive thinking fosters a positive outlook when problem-solving, while we are actively engaged with day-to-day life.

How Gratitude can change a Fixed Mindset toward a Growth Mindset

Fixed-minded people often make the mistake of treating problems as failures or things to avoid. Growth-minded people are resilient because they treat problems as a process of ongoing development. By adopting a growth mindset, we can meet our challenges with an appreciation for where we are and embrace challenges as an anticipated part of the process. People who feel gratitude tend to be happier as they understand that life may be challenging at times, but offers many gifts to cherish.

Make Gratitude a Habit

You can start practicing gratitude in many ways by taking mindful moments throughout the day. One idea is to explore yoga, the inward journey, which was created to be a physical means of introspection and mindfulness. Try this… Before your next yoga session, try setting intentions on gratitude before your asana practice. Joining the Level 1 Yoga Class at NIFS, for example, could be a time to slow down and think about one or two things that provide meaning and happiness in your life. After 45 minutes, you may be surprised by how your thoughts are naturally more optimistic. The troubles from the day suddenly seem not so bad.

Ready to bring more mindfulness and gratitude into your day? Join NIFS Mindful November! Follow along on our social media or stop by the service desk to discover this month’s weekly prompts and participating fitness classes as part of our Mindful Challenge.

Mental health is directly connected and dynamically influenced by our activity levels and our physical health. Why is this?

Physical activity is an integral part of keeping your body, mind, and spirit healthy. Regular physical activity supports cardiovascular health, bone density, muscle mass, disease prevention, and numerous other health benefits. How else does physical activity benefit us?

Stimulus and Our Brains’ Stress Responses

Physical activity stimulates both the Central Nervous System (CNS) and our Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) with signals about our environment, what we feel, our movement control, and our bodily functions.

Our incredible brains respond with what we call sympathetic and parasympathetic feedback responses. These signals regulate everything our body does. Without these signals coming to and from our brain and spinal cord, we wouldn’t react or function in any sense.

Sympathetic responses are related to stress and our “fight or flight” state. When we wake up, get nervous, or experience adrenaline, we release hormones like cortisol that activate our bodies to be ready for action. In these states, we breathe faster and start to divert most of our blood flow toward our muscles and extremities. We also typically do not have focused attention and are heightened in our awareness of everything. We may become hyperalert, agitated, and uncomfortable. These states are useful in short bouts during our daily lives.

Parasympathetic responses are related to our “rest and recover” states that allow us to calm down and return to our natural baseline. During these responses, we release hormones like acetylcholine that have relaxing and calming effects on all of our systems. Blood flow is more uniform across the entire body, and we feel at ease. We can offer more attention to fine details and think with greater clarity. We also experience sensations of hunger, tiredness, and contentment. This state supports our long-term health by ensuring our nutrition and sleep needs are addressed.

Progression into poor states of mental well-being can be common when people become sedentary and don’t stimulate themselves with movement. Life’s stresses can accumulate, and in serious cases, people can develop depression, anxiety, and other concerns when they can’t self-regulate their sympathetic responses. What can we do to help support healthy responses to stress?

Physical Activity and Exercise – “Controlled Stress”

Physical activity benefits us by allowing our mind to release stress (reducing levels of hormones like cortisol) as we condition ourselves to relax after stress and exertion. When we engage in physical activity, we create a stress stimulus, and in response, our body releases catecholamines such as endorphins, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.

The Mental Wellness Benefits of Physical Activity

Exercise is simply structured physical activity. When we engage in physical activity, we expose ourselves to a controlled amount of physical stress that can lead to long-term adaptations, as well as short-term benefits. Common benefits that result from exercise include lower blood pressure, better insulin sensitivity, increased muscle mass, increased bone density, and increased stroke volume.

Our mental performance and focus can benefit from dopamine release influenced by physical activity. Some studies document short-term cognitive improvements in both working and episodic memory. Short-term focus and attention can be improved for hours after bouts of physical activity. Retention of long-term memory from working memory may also be enhanced as we transition through stages of sleep. This means that we may retain more information in our daily activities after physical activity and thus improve our ability to learn.

Another important mental benefit of physical activity is decreased stress levels due to lowered cortisol. This hormone can increase your blood pressure, disrupt digestion, cause depression, weight gain, and sleep issues. When we exercise, we allow our body to release catecholamines and reduce cortisol levels in the blood. This is one of the reasons we feel better immediately after exercise. Afterward, it’s common to experience lower blood pressure, feelings of contentment, achievement, and overall calmness.

One final benefit that is crucial to mention is improved sleep quality. Lower cortisol levels can help prevent or improve sleep disruptions and difficulty falling asleep. The combination of energy expenditure and hormonal responses following exercise enhances our sleep quality.

Why Not Engage in Physical Activity?

Exercise is a form of medicine that proactively improves our mind, body, and spirit. We can see improved stress response and management, enhanced focus and clarity, and better emotional well-being. Why wouldn’t you want to do something that can improve the quality of your life so dramatically?

Not sure where to start? Meet with a NIFS personal trainer to help you reach your goals!

Many of us know that yoga serves as a form of physical activity that increases flexibility for participants. Yoga focuses on putting the individuals in body poses that elongate muscles from head to toe. While this is very true, and I encourage anyone looking to improve their flexibility to incorporate yoga into their weekly workout routine, yoga has so much more to offer than just improvements in flexibility. In fact, the original context of yoga had very little to do with improving flexibility at all.

Originally the purpose of yoga was spiritual development practices to improve mind-body awareness. Over the years, however, many have begun to focus more on the physical benefits of yoga than the mental and spiritual benefits, which has led the practice of yoga to take on newly defined purposes. However, it is important to understand the mind-body awareness benefits of yoga, as they can be just as if not more beneficial than the physical attributes. Let’s take a look at what some of those hidden benefits are.

Nervous System and Digestive System

One major focus of yoga is to become more aware of and to control your breathing patterns. By learning to control breathing, you can move from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system almost instantaneously. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the “fight or flight” response, or the part of your nervous system designed to respond to stress. When the sympathetic nervous system is in control, heart rate and blood pressure rise as a response to fight a possible threat. You want to limit the activity of this side of the autonomic nervous system. This is important because when the parasympathetic nervous system (or rest and digest) is in majority of control, your heart rate, blood pressure, and stress levels lower while your digestion rate increases. Once your body reaches this relaxed state, anxiety becomes something of the past. A faster digestive system helps your body make the most of nutrients found in the food you consume while regulating regular bodily function.

Focus and Creativity

If you ask an experienced yogi what the hardest part of yoga is, you might be surprised by their answer. Typically, one might assume that holding the different yoga poses would be the most challenging aspect; however, there is an even bigger challenge, which includes focusing—on nothing. Meditation is another crucial component of a successful yoga session. Experienced yogis are able to focus their attention on nothing but their inner self; all outside distractions are eliminated, at least temporarily. This may sound very simple, but if you have ever tried to completely clear your mind of all inner thoughts besides what you are feeling at that exact moment, you may be able to grasp how difficult a task this is to successfully complete.

However, once one is able to control their center of attention, they will find their ability to stay focused on one particular task (especially those that require attention to detail) becomes better and better. In a 2012 study published by the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers were able to determine those who practiced meditation for at least 10 minutes a day for up to 16 weeks performed better with divergent-thinking tasks than those who did not participate in meditation at all.

Strength and Muscle Definition

Just in case you are not fascinated by the mind-body awareness benefits of yoga, there is a less discussed muscle defining and strengthening benefit as well, for those who are solemnly interested in the physical benefits. Who knew that yoga is actually great for improving muscle definition, and in rare cases even muscle hypertrophy? Because yoga focuses on moving and upholding your own body weight in various positions, it serves as a great strength workout in addition to flexibility and mind-body training.

Unlike traditional resistance training, which focuses primarily on the concentric contraction (the muscle contracts as it shortens) of a muscle, yoga focuses primarily on the eccentric contraction (the muscle contracts as it stretches) of a muscle. The eccentric contraction component gives muscles a more elongated look, while concentric contractions give muscles a shorter, more bulgy, look. If you have ever seen an experienced yogi’s physique, it may resemble that of a gymnast, basketball player, or even a track athlete versus those who participate in more traditional forms of resistance training, who might resemble a football player or bodybuilder with more muscle hypertrophy.

Yoga tends to train small and large muscles all over the body due to its high demand for muscles to work in conjunction with each other to perform the different body movements in various planes of movement. This is good for the reason that you often tend to work smaller muscle groups that may get little to no attention when practicing machine-oriented resistance training. With a machine that focuses on a one-dimensional plane of movement, it’s often impossible to train multiple muscle groups at the same time. Therefore, yoga tends to be a better option for improving overall body strength along with achieving a more proportional muscular physique.

Other Wellness Benefits

Some additional notable benefits of yoga also include (but are not limited to) immune system boost, pain management, increase in gray brain matter and increase in balance, and function ability. As noted above, the mental and nervous system benefits of yoga must begin to take back priority. Although improving flexibility can be a great thing, many have found that these additional benefits are what separate this form of physical activity from any other form.

This blog was written by Darius Felix, Health Fitness Instructor. To find out more about NIFS bloggers, click here.