In the December 2002 issue of Dr. Susan Lark's health newsletter ("The Lark Letter," Phillips Health, Potomac, Maryland), Susan reported groundbreaking work that has been taking place at the Institute of Heart Math in Boulder Creek, California.
As Dr. Lark explained, there is now very compelling evidence of a direct association between many indicators of good health and the positive emotion of gratitude.
Dr. Lark reported that the Institute of HeartMath claims that the heart plays a major and central role in managing distress in our lives and has a much more intricate communication pattern with the brain that does any other major organ.
What is most remarkable is Dr. Lark's assertion that the heart not only responds to any stimulus that the brain produces but that the heart also generates much more electrical power than the brain itself.
The researchers at the institute fed two groups of rabbits diets high in fat. This is not a heart-healthy diet. In one group, the rabbits were held, petted, and talked to kindly. In the other group the rabbits were not shown any such special handing or other treatment. The group of rabbits treated lovingly devolped significantly less atherosclerosis than the group treated routinely.
Researchers at the Institute of HeartMath have now developed techniques to help human patients generate feelings of sincere love, appreciation, and gratitude in order to effectively control and better synchronize pulse, respiration, and brain wave frequencies.
Later studies showed also that volunteers given training in developing habits of expressing and experiencing love, affection, and, especially, gratitude could improve the functioning of their cardiovascular, immune and hormonal systems.
Moreover, patients who learned to develop these habits reported that they found themselves much, much better able to solve daily problems and conflicts associated with their children, jobs, and rush-hour traffic.
Dr. Lark also reported that in 1995 the American Journal of Cardiology (vol.76, pp. 1089-1093, author: McCarty. R. et al.) published a study showing that learning to express and experience gratitude and appreciation could reduce blood pressure.
Based on all these and other research findings, Dr. Lark recommends using daily meditation exercises in which one sits quietly and comfortably with eyes closed and arms resting gently at one's side. Then, breathing deeply and slowly while focusing on our hearts in the center of the chest, we are advised to visualize filling our hearts with feelings of gratitude and appreciation while feeling the area of chest expand and imagine it and our hearts filling with these warm emotions.
Next Dr. Lark recommends visualizing the gratitude and appreciation radiating from ourselves to everyone who has ever helped us or nourished us in any way (family, friiends, co-workers, pets, even strangers or the community in general).
She advises that we endeavor to enjoy any peaceful and calming feelings that may result.
Dr. Lark also recommends keeping a gratitude journal (also recommended by Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book "Simple Abundance"). Writing down each day at least five things one is thankful for is recommended.
And finally, Dr. Lark also suggests daily affirmations of gratitude and appreciation to fortify the habit of becoming mindful of these most important of all the positive emotions.
In addition to affirmations in which one repeats to oneself statements that one appreciates all the positive things in one's life, all the positive people and situations one has or has ever known, all the people who have been nurturing and supporting, she also recommends affirmations each day in which one reminds oneself to be grateful that one is oneself also a wonderful and worthy person and that one has a body with a healing capacity.
It is not for nothing that Cicero said that gratitude is the parent of all virtues.
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