Social Connection – Andrea Arthur Owan

Well, it’s likely that you’ve fully embraced your New Year’s resolutions and are hot on the path of pursuing them, you have them written down, or you have them tallied up in your mental storage.

But if you want to make life changes, is that the best way for you to start?

Instead of coming up with an endless list of resolutions, why not try a more focused approach, one that is more likely to bring you success.

Why not try formulating an annual overall health self-assessment first?

Advantages of first doing a health self-assessment—

Most people realize that the majority of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned with the first month of the new year. While there may be many reasons for that, an important one is that the resolution was either not carefully thought out or planned out.

There really was no solid basis for the resolution and logical path to follow to get there.

What is a health self-assessment?

With a self-assessment, you can gather the critical information to allow you to take a magnifying glass look at exactly where you are in life, identify the paths that need the most attention, care and adjustment and give you a guide for designing a change blueprint, making those important changes, increasing your chances of success and enjoying satisfying and effective life changes.

But what areas should you target in your assessment?

5 self-assessment focus areas—

Spiritual. While most professionals will list physical s the first category, I argue that your spiritual life is the most important one and the category upon which you structure and develop the other four.

Why is spiritual so important? Because a healthy spiritual life, with weekly church or religious organization attendance and involvement, has been shown to be a critical component in all communities where longevity and effective aging are the most successful. (We’ll explore this more when we talk about Blue Zones.)

Studies show spiritual health is associated with greater wellness. So if your aim is for wellness, why not use spirituality as your strong foundation? Something that involves more than just personal meditation (which is a critical component), or interacting with nature (also important).

My Meditation Mondays blog posts can help you with the spiritual category; but for now, make a personal assessment on how much time you spend—

Meditating
Praying
Attending church or a religious service
Gathering with like-minded friends of the same faith

Decide what you need (more Bible study, more prayer, engage with a local congregation) and take whatever steps are necessary to open and enrich your life to your spiritual needs and health.

Physical. Always focus on staying healthy, but make sure you fashion your fitness plan or program to meet specific goals.

Don’t be vague or general. Make a list of specific goals you want to meet. If you want to gain a certain cardiovascular fitness, decide what that fitness level will be and what it will take to reach it and maintain it.

What if you’re older and just want to aim for having more energy to run around with your grandkids, without having stiff knees or back, or couch-calling fatigue. What is it that’s driving you and the change or goal?

Knowing the specific answers to these questions will help you stay motivated and enjoy more success.

Intellectual. Make sure you devise a category, and activities, to exercise your brain and mental stamina.

Learn something new.
Play board games or crossword puzzles.
Study a subject you’re unfamiliar with.
Pick up a new activity. Exercise a different way. (Yes, this does trigger brain neuron growth.
Take a class at a local college or community college. Many colleges allow senior citizens to audit classes without charge.
Take an existing passion or skill to a new level. Improve upon what you already do or know.
Join a book or chess club, or conquer your public speaking fear by joining Toastmasters!

Social. This is another Blue Zone must—having a strong social network. We’re not talking a fraternity house number of friends, but a handful of really close people you can share your heart with. People who support and encourage and pray for you. Those you can call for help and rely on. People you can laugh and cry with, dine with, and live out life with.

Financial. Stressing about financial issues is one of the type 5 stressors on the life stress and depression-triggering list. It’s also one of the top reasons couples end up in counseling and divorce court.

So do the dirty (and probably unsavory) work of figuring out your financial status and what you need to do to improve it. While some of the changes you have to make may be drastic, like forgoing any dining out or downsizing from a spacious home to a cozy apartment. Purging the stuff you hoarded and stored in the garage. Living more simply.

These are not quality of life changes, but they might be quantity. Once you bite the bullet, so to speak, and make them, you’re likely to enjoy the simplicity and freedom you feel as you reduce your debt and feeling of being chained to work and monthly debt payments.

Decide what you want to do—like travel more, maybe—and draw up some plans and charts to meet that goal.

So start your 2019 right! Take the steps to really make this new year happier health-wise.

NEXT WEEK: We’ll take a quick look at the new fitness guidelines and talk about what they mean for you!

Until then,

Blessings,

Andrea

“Certainly there was an Eden….We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

I have a family member who seems to focus on all the negatives in her life. If she doesn’t have a “big fat problem” to deal with, there doesn’t seem to be anything to focus on, no life purpose. While we occasionally hear her voice words of gratitude, they’re few and far between, and they usually have to do with people being useful to her, rather than “no good to me.”

It’s exhausting emotionally, spiritually and physically, so our time spent with her is limited. She doesn’t see herself as a negative person, but that’s how the rest of the family defines her. Void of a lot of gratitude.

What’s behind being grateful?

Just why do some people seem more naturally grateful than others? Can it be learned through practice? Is there a genetic component to it? What are the best ways to encourage, practice, and develop it? Is it an emotion? Virtue? Behavior?

These are some of the many questions we’ll be exploring together on Meditation Mondays as we approach Thanksgiving here in the United States. We’ll be preparing our hearts for that day, and carrying thankfulness into 2019 with us. And, hopefully, throughout the remainder of our lives.

So let’s get started today with some basics.

Gratitude as a research topic—

Scientists are studying gratefulness, and they’re learning some fascinating things about it. But before they started gratefulness research—a relatively new area in psychology and neuroscience—they had to develop some working definitions. Robert Emmons—considered by some as the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude—and Michael McCullough whittled gratitude down to 2 definitions, so it could be scientifically studied and quantified. Those definitions are:

“Recognizing one has obtained a positive outcome (from something), and;
Recognizing that there is an external source for the positive outcome.”

They understand that people can possess gratitude for something outside of themselves, something, or someone, like God, fate, nature, etc., as the benefactors.

Some scientists then go on to break gratitude down into 3 categories:

An “affective trait”—are you innately more prone to be grateful as part of your personality?
A mood—Does your overall gratitude level alter throughout the day?
An emotion—Where you experience a temporary spike in gratitude as a result of something positive or beneficial being given to you.

Gratitude and brain science—

Scientists have uncovered areas our brains that express or experience gratitude. And some studies claim to have located possible gratitude genes.

Are there biological roots of gratitude? Why do some people seem naturally inclined to experience and express it? Are their ways you can foster “feelings and expressions of gratitude?”

Some researchers look at gratitude on an evolution spectrum: gratitude and helping one another out strengthens community bonds.

“Feeling” gratitude—

I think most people would say they “feel happy” when they experience gratitude, as though happiness and gratitude go hand-in-glove with one another. But evidently we experience gratitude in different ways and depending upon what kind of personality we have, what our cognitive function or awareness is, and what gender we are. Yes, females and males differ on the gratitude spectrum!

Other ingredients need to be considered too. Like:

Where were you born and where did you grow up; and who were your parents?
Social and cultural mores you grew up or live in.
The religion you learned or follow.
The kind of parenting styles you exposed to.

Benefits—

Scientists have uncovered a multitude of benefits for the grateful.

Grateful people demonstrate greater happiness and life satisfaction.
Grateful people experience less materialism.
Grateful people enjoy both physical and psychological benefits.
Grateful people exhibit a greater resiliency to traumatic events.
Gratefulness may promote the development of other traits we consider virtues, like: patience, humility and wisdom. (Although I would argue that no matter how grateful you are, you cannot enjoy real wisdom without first acknowledging God. More on that in a later post.)

And gratitude appears to inspire people to generosity, kindness and helpfulness. It shores up relationships and may improve work environments by promoting positive attitudes and behavior.

In the following weeks, we’ll dig deeper into all of these and discover how to be grateful people, or more grateful than we already are. To pass it on and encourage and promote the behavior in others.

Until then, I’d encourage you to watch the following 4-minute YouTube video in which University of California—Davis professor, Robert Emmons, reveals 4 encouraging benefits in his presentation: “What Good is Gratitude?”

For more information on gratitude, go to the University of California—Berkeley’s: Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. They have a wonderful online magazine called Great Good Magazine: Science-Based Insights for a Meaningful Life.

Blessings,

Andrea

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