Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume - 3, issue 12, I June 2019 | Page 20

One powerful effect of gratitude is that it can boost serotonin. Trying to think
of things you are grateful for forces you to focus on the positive aspects of
your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior
cingulate cortex.
I know, sometimes life lands a really mean punch in the gut and it feels like
there’s nothing to be grateful for. Guess what? Doesn’t matter. You don’t have
to find anything. It’s the searching that counts.
t’s not finding gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look in the first
place. Remembering to be grateful is a form of emotional intelligence. One
study found that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial
and lateral prefrontal cortex. These density changes suggest that as
emotional intelligence increases, the neurons in these areas become more
efficient. With higher emotional intelligence, it simply takes less effort to be
grateful.
And gratitude doesn’t just make your brain happy — it can also create a
positive feedback loop in your relationships. So express that gratitude to the
people you care about.
But what happens when bad feelings completely overtake you? When you’re
really in the dumps and don’t even know how to deal with it? There’s an easy
answer…
2) Label Negative Feelings :
You feel awful. Okay, give that awfulness a name. Sad? Anxious? Angry?
Boom. It’s that simple. Sound stupid? Your noggin disagrees.
…in one fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI)
measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique
study,
appropriately titled “Putting Feelings into Words” participants viewed pictures
of people with emotional facial expressions. Predictably, each participant’s
amygdala activated to the emotions in the picture.
relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled.)
But when they were asked to name the emotion, the ventrolateral prefrontal
cortex activated and reduced the emotional amygdala reactivity. In other
words, consciously recognising the emotions reduced their impact.
Suppressing emotions doesn’t work and can backfire on you.
Gross found that people who tried to suppress a negative emotional
experience failed to do so. While they thought they looked fine outwardly,
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