By Vicki Hughes               Posted Sept. 20, 2013

“When you mentally practice something whether it’s a thought or an action, and whether it’s positive or negative, your brain increases a cortical output signal for that thought or action-that is, it becomes more proficient at creating that result.”
Shawn Achor from Before Happiness

What thoughts and actions have I been practicing mentally? What am I training my brain to do better and more proficiently?

Am I practicing how to succeed or fail? Am I training all of the synapses and neurons in my brain to see solutions or problems?

Here’s what I’m discovering about how it applies to Gratitude:

When I mentally practice being grateful by listing five things a day for which I’m thankful, I’m training my brain to scan for more to be thankful for.

I develop my capacity to recognize what is going well and devote more precious brain resources to the thoughts, ideas and actions that serve me. It also helps me reduce the resources I’m devoting to scanning for problems.

Scientifically our brains can only process forty bits of information per second out of the 11,000,000 bits it’s receiving.

The things we choose to mentally practice are the major determining factor in which forty bits we will pick out of those 11,000,000.

As for me I’m planning to take in a better forty bits today.

(If you’d like to get updates about my upcoming book on Gratitude in The Workplace, please Share on your FB page)

© Vicki Hughes 2013

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