Bariatric Weight Loss Surgery News and Info

Fresh tips to help you do just that.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

A surprising choice impacts our health as much as the foods we eat and the exercise we do; an outlook of gratitude. This is something we all can have. It comes naturally for some, but most of us need to work at being grateful. You might be surprised to find just how important gratitude is and how easy it is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

Most of us find it pretty easy to feel grateful when we land an amazing job, someone goes out of their way to help us, or we walk away from a car accident unscathed. Ordinary daily life presents a wealth of opportunities to feel grateful if we just tune in. At our frenzied pace, cultivating gratitude for the little things throughout the day takes effort, but you may find that it is easier than you think.

Science backs up this connection between our sense of gratitude and our health. Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough are psychologists who specialize in gratitude research and they have found a very clear link between being grateful and health. Their studies show the impressive benefits of keeping a gratitude journal or gratitude list. Those who journal their gratitude exercise more, report fewer physical symptoms, feel better about life as a whole, are more optimistic, are more likely to make progress towards important personal goals, and have higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination and attentiveness. Quite a list!

Fresh tips to help you do just that.

Holiday Shopping

• Wear a pedometer and keep track of your steps. Shoot for at least 10,000 steps a day. Hit your goal by doing at least some of your shopping at stores rather than online.
• Don’t skip meals and take a healthy snack or two with you; being famished makes it harder to resist mall indulgences. A portion of almonds or a protein bar work great for this circumstance.
• Keep shopping stress to a minimum by making a list, keeping it simple, and buying items on sale. Set and stick to a budget. Talk to family about setting dollar limits on gifts, draw names to limit the number of gifts to buy, or cut back on who you purchase gifts for. The financial strain of overspending can derail your peace of mind and health.
• Consider gifts that help others to live a healthy lifestyle–a yoga mat, an olive oil sprayer or mister, a massage gift certificate, a fruit basket, a pedometer, a subscription to a health magazine, or other health-inspiring gifts.