Doesn’t it feel good to be appreciated? When someone shares with you their appreciation, whether about you or something positive that happened to them, the feeling is palpable. That’s because appreciation is a powerful emotion that positively impacts our entire system. Science has shown that this single emotion can positively enhance our attitudes, our immune system, our heart rhythms – even our mental clarity.
There’s a wonderful quote by Robert Brault that goes, “appreciate the little things in life for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Rather than waiting to look back, we can intentionally add more of this powerful and beneficial energy in our lives by just taking a couple moments every day to genuinely feel the appreciation we have for our friends, loved ones and even the kindness we may have received from someone we don’t know.
Consciously applying appreciation adds value to that which is important in our lives and reminds us that life is good!
If you are stressed, acknowledge your feelings as soon as you sense that you are out of sync or engaged in common stressors— feelings such as frustration, impatience, anxiety, overload, anger, being judgmental, mentally gridlocked, etc.
Take a short time out and do heart-focused breathing: breathe a little slower than usual; pretend you are breathing through your heart or chest area. (This is proven to help create coherent wave patterns in your heart rhythm—which helps restore balance and calm in your mental and emotional nature while activating the affirming power of your heart.)
During the heart-focused breathing, imagine with each breath that you are drawing in a feeling of inner-ease and infusing your mental and emotional nature with balance and self-care from your heart. (It’s scientifically proven that radiating love and self-care through your system activates beneficial hormones and boosts your immunity. Practicing will increase your awareness of when the stressful emotion has calmed into a state of ease.)
When the stressful feelings have calmed, affirm with a heartfelt commitment that you want to anchor and maintain the state of ease as you re-engage in your projects, challenges or daily interactions.
