Rewire Your Brain With a 5-Minute Exercise

You’ve maybe heard me say ‘where our thoughts go, our energy goes.’ Well, I’ve got great news for you, we can leverage this for healing!

Did you know feeling gratitude triggers the feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin?

This means we don’t need to eat that candy bar to give us a quick hit of these feel good chemicals with a sugar rush; instead, we can just think about something we’re grateful for. Mind blowing! 🤯

Research has shown our mind creates 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% were negative and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. If we can interrupt this programming with positivity, we can start truly changing our health.

So how can you leverage this in your day-to-day life?

EASY. With a simple five-minute (or less) gratitude journal.

Don’t let the ease and simplicity of this fool you, it is highly effective in repatterning the brain and shifting your neurochemistry.

What does this mean? We can help the mind create different, more positive thought patterns that promote health, instead of sabotage it. And we can feel better in the process by shifting our body’s hormonal balance. Did you know you have that kind of power?! You do!

As you begin to force your brain to think about gratitude, you start opening new neural pathways. Ways that weren’t easy or natural for your brain to follow now start to become used more often. It becomes easier and easier for your mind and brain to tap into gratitude. 

This is like a path in the woods. Once we travel it a few times, we can walk along it with more ease, knowing which way to go. Eventually, we can walk along the path without thinking…because the path is clear. 

And that’s what happens in the brain. It starts tapping into gratitude and positive thoughts without even thinking about it. At this point, these positive thoughts can become habit. Once they are habit, we don’t need to think about them, they just automatically happen.

Who wouldn’t want to replace some stress & anxiety thoughts with thoughts that trigger feel-good chemicals in our body?!

So back to the process. It goes something like this:

Find a simple journal book, notebook, or even a piece of paper. Place it by your bed. Right before you go to sleep, list three things you were grateful for that day.

Big or small, doesn’t matter. Survey your day. Warm house, smile from a stranger as you walked by, beautiful sunrise, your child giving you a hug, healthy lunch, exercise, a promotion... Whatever caused you to feel grateful, list it. No judgement! 

And that’s it. It’s as simple as that. Repeat this process once per day for at least six weeks. After that amount of time, you’ll be stunned at how easy and simple it is to get these thoughts flowing. And you’ll find yourself feeling gratitude at random times, which means your nervous system is spending more time in a ‘feel good,’ positive state. 

This will directly boost your health, keep you in alignment with yourself and universal flow, and help you feel happier. Isn’t a short five-minute daily investment worth these amazing benefits?

Let your mind help move your body into better health, one thought at a time.❤️