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Conscientious Eating Basics: Adding the Good and Weeding Out the Bad

Which of the following most describes your eating or meal experience?

 

A) I throw together 2 pieces of bland bread, lunchmeat, a slice of cheese, a limp strip of lettuce and a spread of mayo and mustard for lunch. Every -day.

B) I often eat while working at my desk and/or computer.

C) I eat while watching television or reading the mail, magazine or a book, or chatting on the phone or reading text messages.

D) I often stop at fast a food “restaurant” or pick up a pizza for dinner because it’s late, I don’t have anything at home to fix, or I’m too tired to prepare a meal.

E) Most of my meals are microwaved or come from frozen packages.

 

Relate to any of those? How about one or more of them?

 

Today we’re getting an introduction to several posts dedicated to conscientious eating. But before we get into specifics, let’s look at some dismal facts:

 

  • For a variety of reasons, our current medical system is based on people being sick and dying.
  • 2/3 of Americans go to work with flu-like symptoms. (We really do live at work.)
  • The #1 reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. is medical bills that can’t afford to be paid.
  • Sitting and lack of activity is killing us, literally. Seven hours of TOTAL sitting time a day doubles your risk of death.
  • 1/3 of Americans die before 65.
  • Most people don’t get enough sleep.
  • 70% of your immune system is in your digestive tract.
  • Many experts believe all disease begins in the gut.
  • Even though we may be surrounded by people, we live and work in a very solitary way.
  • Since the beginning of time, plants and food have been our true medicine. We need to return to that foundation.
  • 69% of Americans are overweight or obese.
  • SUGAR is now considered by many professionals to be poison.
  • While we are living longer thane ever, we are sicker than ever.
  • We grow our foods in the chemicals they use to make chemical weapons.
  • High fructose corn syrup is like crack to your body and brain.
  • We tend to treat separate symptoms rather than the whole person.
  • When you’re under stress, you crave sugar, fat, and salt, and there is no satiation (satisfaction met) point for these.
  • It is emotion that causes people to reach for the wrong kind of food.
  • 90% of serotonin—a chemical and neurotransmitter that regulates mod, social behavior, digestion, appetite, sleep, memory, sexual function and desire—is manufactured in the digestive tract, not the brain as we once thought.
  • Wellness is really a diet and mental health lifestyle connection.
  • We really are living in a “food desert” that comes with a 5x the average death rate—death that comes from curable diseases.
  • Cultures that eat grains have a higher rate of dementia.
Important Takeaway—

Food does affect the body and mind, but most of us blindly eat whatever is put in front of us or opt for the quick and easy (boring) meal approach.

 

Conscientious eating—

As we explore conscientious eating, which goes beyond just being mindful of how you eat, we’ll focus on:

  • being more aware
  • being more mindful
  • taking back your health

 

As Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, said,

 

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

 

As we move rapidly into this busy holiday season, where we’re ramping up everything in our lives to an often frenzied, overspent schedule, I invite you to keep something very important in mind—

 

It can be self-destructive to not tend to yourself.

 

Please take a moment to let that statement sink in. Meditate on it.

 

To many of you, that truth runs contrary to what you think your religious faith teaches you. It might even sound as though it borders on sinful, contrary to God’s word.

But how does Jesus, the reason for this marvelous season and for our very lives, say we should approach our lives?

With a light burden. Not a weary or heavy-laden feeling.

 

I can hear many of saying right now: “What does that have to with conscientious eating, Andrea? Or eating in general?

 

Plenty.

 

The fact, as I already noted, is:

 

Emotion causes people to reach for the wrong kind of food.

 

Life is emotional. The holidays even more so.

Just as our physical choices, activity choices, lifestyle choices and career choices affect us profoundly, so do our food-style choices affect us. What it comes down to is:

 

Adding the good stuff and weeding out the bad. (In that order.)

 

As we go into Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year, we’ll be learning about food—God’s magnificent gift to us. A gift he created for our

  • enjoyment and pleasure
  • sustenance
  • mental and physical health and healing
  • social fulfillment

 

And as we go forth, keep those highlighted statements in mind:

It can be self-destructive to not tend to yourself.
Emotion causes people to reach for the wrong kind of food.
You need to add the good stuff to your life and weed out the bad.

 

It won’t happen immediately or all at once. Our goal will be to recognize what causes us to fail in this area and start the weeding process.

And we’ll accomplish it together!

 

Join me this Friday when I’ll talk about the art and health of social eating. It’s something I knew and really learned how to do while walking the Camino de Santiago. Actually, when I ate on the Camino. That post will give you a bonus to our conscientious eating discussions!

 

Until then,

  1. Decide that you don’t want to be one of the dismal statistics.
  2. Pray about what God might be saying to you in this area.
  3. Find a good friend, or several, to be accountability buddies with you. Friends that want to embark on this life-changing journey with you, to support and encourage you. To be supported and encouraged.

 

Thank God for the bounty He has provided, and prepare to enjoy it in new ways. With family and friends.

PS I’m humbly requesting prayer for recovery from having a bone spur cut off my big toe. While the surgery wasn’t long or extensive, the recovery is painful, and I’m unable to get around as easily as they said I would. In fact, I’m not getting around much at all. That’s one of the reasons this post was scheduled so late. Thank you!!

 

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

 

Photo by rawpixel on unsplash

How Do Religion and Prayer Affect Gratitude?

You may have wondered if religious people are more grateful than their unbelieving or agnostic peers. Maybe you’ve asked yourself if praying makes you a more grateful person, or if parenting styles encourages the development of grateful children.

Today on Meditation Mondays, we’ll look at those factors: what role does religion or faith or parenting play in gratitude.

 

What’s Religion Got to Do With It?

As it turns out, a lot.

In a 2003 study, people who were noted as being more grateful had a higher sense of engaging in religion for it’s own sake and a lower sense of engaging in religion for the sake of others. Like someone would if they engaged in religion simply for the sake of improving their social status. In other words: dishonest motive.

 

Other studies show positive correlations between gratitude and attirbutes typically associated with religion, such as:

  • frequently participating in religious practices
  • considering religion to be an important factor in life
  • having a personal relationship with God
  • experiencing spiritual transcendence—a perceived experience of the sacred that affects your feelings, goals, self-perception and ability to surpass, conquer or outshine your difficulties
  • being committed to your religion—a sense of and expressing your commitment

 

When studying young people ages 17 – 24, researchers found that this age group tends to feel gratitude when they—

  • have their prayers answered
  • experience a miracle
  • have religious friends

 

But there were behaviors not correlated with gratitude—

  • the religion a person was affiliated with
  • private devotion practice
  • actively participating in organized religion
  • having a belief in a spiritual world
  • how important religion is to your life
  • considering yourself to be spiritual

 

I found this list interesting. These results show that gratitude is not triggered or related to what religion you practice; whether or not you maintain a practice of doing devotions or having a time of devotions; being active in organized religion; just generally believing in the spiritual world; ranking religion as very important to your life; or considering yourself spiritual.

I find the last finding fascinating.

So often I have heard someone say, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” My internal eyeballs roll. Exactly what does that mean? I’m not sure they can answer that. But now I have some scientific ammunition for how flimsy that belief can be.

Evidently just being spiritual doesn’t make you grateful.

 

But what does affect your gratitude is praying and having your prayers answered!

 

And while both Christians and atheists put a high price tag on gratitude and the benefits that come with and from being grateful, it was the Christians that reported “significantly higher” levels of gratitude in terms of emotions that feel or emote gratitude than their unbelieving peers.

 

Religion, gratitude, and mental health—

Some interesting findings popped up in this category.

Older adults that tended be less grateful experienced depression with prolonged financial difficulties.

But church-attending older adults who believed that God intervened in their lives to help them overcome difficulties displayed greater gratitude over time.

And religious involvement has been linked to having a grateful disposition, regardless of negative or positive feelings or display of emotions.

 

Using your religion to deal with stress had a significant association with gratitude, and that has a high correlation to utilizing prayer to figure out what God is trying to tell you or teach you.

 

The takeaway is:

  • religion may help people maintain gratitude even in the face of emotional distress.
  • religion also offers social support, which triggers gratitude.
  • praying can stimulate gratitude, for achieving help or understanding (for you or others).
  • gratitude can help you view negative life events as lessons from the Almighty!

 

Effects of Praying on Gratitude—

Research has shown that if you are instructed to pray for your partner for a 4-week period of time, you will likely report having higher levels of gratitude for that person than someone who just thinks good or positive thoughts about their partner.

Ever have anyone say to you “I’ll be thinking good thoughts for you!”

When someone says that to me, it always leaves me feeling a little flat and uninspired. I always assumed that was because the person saying it was usually an atheist or agnostic. But maybe it’s because deep down inside my heart, I know “good thoughts” won’t cut it. Something deeper needs to be involved.

But don’t fall into the trap of simply egging someone on with adding religious-speak, either, like using the words “spirit,” “divine,” and “God.” Using those words fall just as flat. They don’t increase feelings of gratitude.

 

And do you think that having intrinsic religiousness and a trait of gratitude increases your gratitude for a favor? Evidently that power combo didn’t effect the expression of gratitude in response to a favor.

 

Men versus Men—

In the German men versus American men study I mentioned in last week’s post, the researchers also discovered that 1/3 of the American men in the study preferred to hide their gratitude.

None of the German men expressed that desire or need.

 

Gratitude and people around the world—

Far more than Americans, United Kingdom citizens tended to link gratitude with a host of negative emotions, like:

  • guilt
  • indebtedness
  • embarrassment
  • awkwardness

 

And kids?

American children were the most likely to express “concrete gratitude” (the desire to repay a gift or favor), when they were compared to children from Russia, Brazil, and China.

Which kids were the least likely to express it? Russian kids.

However, 11 to 14-year-old Russian kids expressed “connective gratitude” (taking into account the desires of the benefactor when repaying a gift or favor) than the other children.

 

What about parenting?

Drum roll? Brrrrrrrrrr. The answer is…?

Nothing. Not anything concrete, anyway.

What a researcher named Andrea Hussong did find and publish in 2017 was while 85% of parents encouraged their children to say “thank you,” only 39% of them to experience gratitude in ways other than saying those two words.

The question that still remains in the area of parent-taught gratitude, though, is how parenting choices influence how children think of and experience gratitude.

Researchers say it’s an area ripe for more research, and more study needs to be done on it.

 

NEXT WEEK we’ll take a break from looking at the research to explore more of gratitude in prayer. You won’t want to miss this post! It’ll provide you with great preparation for Thanksgiving, and a good Christmas present idea—for you or that special friend.

 

Until then, be thinking about how you pray and for whom you pray.

  1. Who could you pray and increase your gratitude for?
  2. How might you increase your children’s gratitude expressions through parenting?
  3. As Thanksgiving approaches, who can you think of that would get a real boost from a show of gratitude?
  4. How could you boost your own gratitude trait?

 

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by rawpixel on unsplash

How the Camino de Santiago Changed My Daily Eating and Cooking Habits

I thought we were going to have to eat it for every meal while walking the Camino. All the books said we’d have to, that the Spaniards consume it for lunch and dinner, and that breakfast would only be a hard (read: stale) piece of bread for breakfast. Maybe you’d get lucky and find a place open early enough for a café con leche.

 

WELLLLL, it could be that we hit the jackpot, all of the Camino books I read were old and wrong, or the establishments are trying to meet the demands of more discriminating (and maybe demanding?) pilgrims.

 

Whatever it is, we didn’t have to eat the ubiquitous ham sandwich or pork dinner if we didn’t want to.

We weren’t stuck with ham and a sliver-of-cheese sandwich. We didn’t have only pork tenderloin for dinner.

Instead, we were treated to exquisitely fresh and varied meals for nearly every day of our journey.

 

A lot of it!

 

Fresh bananas, oranges and apples were prevalent. We often packed those along for a mid-morning snack with a hunk of delicious Basque cheese, since we elected not to get bogged down physically by a big breakfast.

Sometimes we’d treat ourselves to a HUGE flaky, buttery croissant, or one stuffed with dark chocolate (Chris’s personal fave) and cup of café con leche, but most of the time we waited until mid-morning to stop for a short break and nibble.

Then we’d usually walk through lunch and have a sandwich or more substantial snack after we stopped walking, around 2:00 – 3:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes the sandwich would be one we’d purchased that morning and saved, or was a fresh one we found at an open store. (When we arrived in a new city nearly all of the places were closed for siesta, so we had to wait until they re-opened. In some towns that was five-ish; in other places it was 6:00 or 7:00. You never could be too sure about what you’d encounter, so you learned to be prepared in the meal or snack-to-tide-you-over department.

 

And many of the towns had markets open early enough to enjoy a cafe con leche before heading out. One wonderful and noteworthy Lorca albergue we stayed in offered a nice breakfast selection.

 

3-Course Meals—

But nearly every dinner we enjoyed was a three-course meal affair, with several selections for each course.

The “Salad Mixta” was usually a large plate of greens, a sliced hard-boiled egg, tuna fish, fresh tomatoes, white asparagus and tomatoes (and sometimes roasted red pepper strips), maybe a sprinkling of cheese or corn kernels. A light coating of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt served as the dressing. I was usually full and adequately satisfied after the salad, which I always ordered.

Then the second course was an equally humongous plate of pork tenderloin, albondigas (meat and pork meatballs) in a delicious, mildly sweet roasted red pepper sauce, a pasta dish or a fresh fish dish. I lost count of how many plates of northern Spain sea bass tenderloin or bacalao (cod) with a pepper sauce coating I consumed. And I didn’t tire of it.

Dessert might have been flan (always offered), ice cream, cheesecake, tiramisu, or a choice of whole fruit. Occasionally a monstrous slab of chocolate fudge cake with mounds of whipped cream was a selection.

And the dessert (unless it was a ubiquitous Nestle concoction), didn’t taste as though it contained nearly as much sugar as our American varieties. So the ingredient flavors were not overpowered by the super sweet sugar.

Oh, and every dinner came with a full bottle of red wine. (The daily imbibing on the cheap motivates a lot of people to walk the Camino).

I can count on three fingers how many times I had wine, which includes a glass of rose in France, a sip of red somewhere in Spain, and enough to dampen end of my tongue at the famous Fuente del Vino (Fountain of Wine) at Bodegas Irache.

 

No way was I going to walk the Camino on a glass of wine, as some unfortunate pilgrims tried (and failed) to do successfully.

 

Energy to spare on reduced rations and exercise—

What we noticed was how physically and emotionally satisfied we felt with the meal strategy.

Although we consumed a lot of calories for dinner, walking five to six hours a day quickly burned that off.

But exercising on a primarily empty or lightly filled stomach allowed our bodies to more efficiently burn fuel without us feeling sluggish or uncomfortably stuffed.

It was something I used to practice religiously—not eating before exercising—but had abdicated, primarily in favor of convenience or meeting others’ schedules.

But now we’re back to it. And we feel SO much better! And physically lighter. Keeps the brain sharper too. That practice also fits into the popular Keto diet, where you’re running in caloric deficit and burning ketones.

 

Opting for fresh food—

Another thing we noticed was just how much more we enjoyed REALLY fresh (like right off the adjacent farm) food.

Anyone who had the joy of biting into a beefsteak tomato thirty years ago knows how disappointing our current overgrown, overproduced, GMO’d tomatoes we get today are.

In France and Spain, we once again enjoyed the real deal—plump, fresh, juicy, right-off-the-vine, organic tomatoes. Many tasted like heirloom varieties.

And we’re not going back to the tasteless type.

 

Shopping and cooking fresh—

Now I’m taking the time to shop frequently—about every other day—for fresh (and organic) everything:

  • Fresh fish
  • Fresh veggies
  • Fresh fruit
  • Fresh meat (which we rarely consume now)
  • Fresh milk
  • Fresh cheese
  • Fresh bread
  • You name it. It gets purchased fresh and consumed. Not much frozen anymore, except maybe berries.

 

Hello, farmers markets!

Chris and I are becoming weekend regulars at the local farmers market, returning to our favorite handpicked produce sellers, the adorable bread baker who kneads and molds her artisan bread with her gnarled rheumatoid arthritic hands. The former Wall Street worker who sold it all and moved to a Sonoita ranch (on the Arizona-Mexico border) to raise grass-fed cattle gets attention for her delicious ground meat and sausage (and hydrating purified rain water blended with rose water and 6 vital essential oils).

And I’m really enjoying the art of preparing and cooking, making a game out of seeing what I can combine for flavors. You’d be surprised what tastes good together!

I’ve even cracked open the Great Courses DVD and book The Everyday Gourmet: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking compiled by The Culinary Institute of America. I started it a couple of years ago and am excited to re-start and finish it, improve my skills and cooking joy!

Cooking can be fun and relaxing. Something you can take pride in doing. Something that joggles the imagination and adds variety to life. It can also be a very social event, as when you and your hubby are chatting and chopping and stirring and laughing.

 

Makes me wonder when they’re going to get wise and re-introduce home economics back into the schools—for girls AND boys!

 

And all of that is reaping side benefits:

  • Enjoying my market and food shopping time—browsing the produce to see what’s available, planning my meals based on the available (and in-season) ingredients.
  • Getting exercise by moving around the kitchen more when I’m cooking, and more often in general, since I’m spending more time in food preparation.
  • Slowing down and enjoying the slower pace of life.
  • Getting outside in the fresh air to stroll through a farmers market and enjoy friendly conversation with vendors.
  • Enjoying meals more.
  • Spending less money on food because more gets eaten and less gets wasted!
  • Did I say saving money?
  • Except for dinner, which we’re trying to eat by 6:00 PM, we’re no longer married to specific times for breakfast and lunch. Sometimes we eat a late breakfast, skip lunch and then enjoy an early late lunch/early dinner. It certainly helps with the sleep!

 

NEXT WEEK I’ll add something to this topic that will help you emotionally, physically and spiritually. (Especially through the holidays!)

Until then, happy farmers market browsing!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Dane Deaner on unsplash

Surviving the Holidays with Conscientious Eating

What’s the one thing most of us have in common during the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday window?

Want a hint?

Overeating.

Not a surprise, is it? All of those delectable goodies: the rich desserts, the fatty dressings, company parties, family gatherings, Aunt Bee’s 1000 calories a piece family heirloom recipe, and on and on. You feel obligated to indulge and out of control. You excuse it as okay because you’re going to turn over a new eating leaf in 2019.

 

As we rev up to Thanksgiving this month and then into Christmas in six weeks, maintaining healthful eating habits and not gaining an extra five to ten pounds that will likely not come off next year, we’re going to wade into the conscientious eating waters here on Workout Wednesdays.

Just exactly what does conscientious eating mean?

It’s not just conscious eating, as you’re probably familiar with. Living consciously is a big topic these days. It goes beyond that.

It means not just being conscious of what or how you’re eating, but being conscientious about the food choices you make.

Specifically, we’re going to look closely at how eating affects your mental health, body inflammation levels and brain, especially the aging brain.

 

Last month I had the opportunity to attend a great educational program on conscientious eating.

One of the sad facts we learned is that the US life expectancy hasn’t improved much in the past several decades, and the major determinant in improving life expectancy was the introduction of antibiotics after World War II.

And although the longevity age seems to be eking up, much of that may be due to available medicine.

An ugly statistic we must face is that the United States ranks 34th on the longevity list, tied with Cuba.

Not a pretty picture.

 

Country Comparisons

One thing both Chris and I noticed when we returned from Europe was just how overweight Americans are. I knew the statistics, but the glaring fatness and sluggishness of Americans couldn’t be missed, or ignored.

 

Just why is that? And does that heavily influence our poor longevity status?

I think there are a lot of contributors to our obese status, and we’ll look at several of those. But we’ll focus primarily on what you can do—as a consumer and as a person concerned about your health, your lifestyle, and your overall fitness and energy levels—to improve your health, lose weight without going on some special six-week caloric restriction diet, and reduce your chances of serious illness.

We’ll really delve into the woes of the Western diet and why we need to care about inflammation in the body, what it means for your overall present and future health.

 

Want to feel good mentally, physically and spiritually on January 2? Then meet me back here next week when we start our conscientious eating focus!

 

Pre-holiday checklist:

Until then, go through your cabinets, pantry and refrigerator to get an idea of how many products you purchase that contain sugar, added sugar and ingredients like fructose and high fructose corn syrup. This includes any kind of sugar, even if it’s raw or evaporated cane source. What percentage of your overall food intake does it constitute? (Make sure you examine ingredients in every processed food, frozen, fresh or canned.)

 

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

What do Personality, Cognitive Traits and Gender Have to do with Gratitude?

Are some people just naturally grateful, or did their parents teach them to have gratitude? Does gender play any role in gratitude? What about personality, cognitive, or psychological traits?

It turns out that you can answer yes, yes, yes and yes! to all of these possibilities.

Let me show you why.

 

Determiners of your gratitude—

Psychologists are looking into what determines whether or not a person demonstrates gratefulness. They’ve wondered whether it is personality, cognitive or gender. First, we’ll explore their findings in personality factors.

 

Personality and gratitude—

Scientists have wondered if gratitude could be considered its own personality trait. Can it be added to the Big 5 traits Saucier and Goldberg categorized in 1998?

  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Extraversion
  • Neuroticism
  • Openness

 

The findings are inconclusive. While it is clear some people are more grateful than others, the researchers still debate whether gratitude, or gratefulness, can actually be classified as a bona fide personality trait.

So then they turn to:

 

 

Cognitive factors—

This area is where the research yields more conclusive data. According to a Greater Good Science Center whitepaper on the subject:

 

“The ways that we think about a giver can increase or decrease the likelihood we will feel gratitude in a certain situation. In particular, studies have found that how participants see the intention of a benefactor, the cost to the benefactor, and the value of the benefit are all independently and significantly associated with the level of gratitude reported by these participants.”

 

In other words: the higher the perception of gift-giver benevolence—the genuineness behind the giving—the greater the recipient’s gratitude toward the giver, and with the gift.

 

 Free will or predestination?

And interestingly enough, people who believe in free will (rather than pre-destined) or those who have been primed to feel more free will exists, believe a giver is more sincere in his actions.

This finding has been supported with neuroimaging studies of the brain area associated with reward. In a bullet point nutshell:

A benefactor’s intention or motivation influences a recipient’s gratitude experience!

 In yet another interesting research result, though

 

“People had to believe they were responsible for their own success at something [like a test result] in order to feel gratitude for the help they received.”

 

Other results show—

Gratitude levels were affected by comparisons of a giver or gift to other favors or gifts given by others. Kind of like a gift comparison scale.

 

Unexpected favors and gifts resulted in higher gratitude levels.

 

Yet a recent study indicated that

 

“Gratitude was more related to the value of the benefit received rather than to the participant’s expectations of generosity from people more or less close to them.”

 

Evidently people are prone to comparing gifts, weighing the differences between them, and assessing the giver. It all starts getting more complex than imagined, but who among us hasn’t experienced some of these thoughts:

  • Thinking the gift giver was just trying to get on our good side or schmooze us.
  • Comparing—before you even had a chance to shut down the ungenerous, skeptical thought—a gift someone gives you to a gift the person gave someone else.
  • Not feeling particularly grateful for a gift because the gift didn’t hold much value for or to you, even though the giver thought his gift was stupendous and thoughtful.
  • Feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for a gift you know the giver thought carefully about and bought, even though you knew it was costly to them.

 

And then there’s the gender factor in gratefulness—

Studies point to children and adolescent girls being more grateful.

Adult women appear to be grateful than adult men.  And women tend to be more grateful to God than men.

In 20009, researchers Kashdan, Mishra, Breen, and Froh found that

 

“Men were less likely to feel and express gratitude, made more critical evaluations of gratitude, and derived fewer benefits.”

 

Could it be that men associate gratitude with weakness? That’s a question researchers are still pondering.

Or could it be the culture in which the men are raised?

Research indicates that’s a possibility.

In experiments, men from Germany have been found to be significantly more grateful than American males. And the German men were also more likely to see gratitude as a positive.

Do American men see gratitude as a sign of weakness?

 

Individual barriers to gratitude—

“Yes” the research shows. Personality and individual factors do appear to play a role. There are certain personality traits that negatively affect gratitude. They include:

Materialism, and

Envy (coveting)

“High materialists are less happy in part because they find it harder to be grateful for what they have.”

 

Cynicism

Scripture has some things to say about a cynical attitude (it’s not positive), but something else to be considered here is the iGeneration—also known as Generation Z, Post-Millenials, Founders, Plurals or Homeland Generation—has some significant, disturving characteristics. They tend to be:

  • Very cynical and less trusting
  • Have the highest IQ of any other measured generation
  • Have the highest rates of suicide, which is one of the leading causes of death for teens and young adults

Do all of these factors—cynical nature, high intellect, and mental illness (and a sense of hopelessness)—prime these young people to have less gratitude toward life, gifts, people, nature? And God.

 

What are we older adults demonstrating for them and teaching them through our words, actions and way we live our lives? Through television programming and movies? The way we, ourselves, use and get addicted to technology and social sites that do little or nothing to improve our lives, or only make us feel more disconnected and lonely.

I think we have a serious problem that needs immediate attention.

 

Narcissism and gratitude—

Ever give a narcissist a gift? What kind of response did you get? Flat? Disinterest? Not much of an acknowledgement or thank you?

Researchers wonder if narcissists might not even notice a gift has been given to them. Why? Because they believe they’re entitled to the gift.

Sometimes it seems as though there are a lot of narcissists around these days too.

Are we raising and conditioning a generation and nation of narcissists because of all the “you deserve it” rhetoric the last 40 years? Madison Avenue marketers have made a bundle pitching us that line, and we become envious and frustrated and sometimes depressed when we can’t have it or don’t get it. We overspend to have it, sink ourselves into financial quagmires by buying into their advertising lines.

And politicians get in on the you-deserve-it game too. Pay careful attention to what they say and how they feed into narcissistic tendencies.

 

How are we allowing others to affect our gratitude?

 

The headwinds/tailwinds (barriers vs. benefits) factors—

Ever have something go really wrong in life? How do you compare it to the times when things were really going right?

Turns out that the headwinds (things are going badly) events get far more attention and weight in our lives and thinking than do the tailwinds (things are going great) events.

 

We tend to focus more on the barriers we face than on the benefits we enjoy.

Barriers versus benefits.

What do you focus most on?

Some of the funnier, and really revealing, examples researchers cited are:

 

  • “Democrats and Republicans believe the electoral map works against them.
  • “Football fans take more notice of the challenging games on their team’s   schedule than on a rival team’s schedule.
  • “People more frequently recall episodes when they thought a sibling was treated better than when they themselves were treated better.”

 

And you?

How would you measure yourself on these scales and with these factors?

Do you have friends or family members that could be poster children for any of these factors?

Do these results cause you to pause and take stock of your own gratitude, and the gratitude you’ve received (or haven’t received) from others?

Does it deepen your understanding and appreciating of gratitude?

 

As we move toward Thanksgiving, when gratefulness is really on our mind, start thinking about how tailwinds and headwinds in life affect your thinking and gratitude. Could you turn your tailwinds around to view them in a more positive light?

 

How can you raise your gratitude quotient?

 

NEXT WEEK we’ll look at social and cultural factors linked to gratitude—like religion, culture and parenting?

Until then,

Keep priming the gratitude pump, in you and your family!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

 Photo by Nathan Dumlao on unsplash.com