Engage in a gratitude practice 1-3 times per week to achieve long-lasting positive impacts on subjective well-being, mental and physical health, and to shift pro-social neural circuits to dominate your mindset by default.
Focus your gratitude practice on the feeling of receiving thanks, either by recalling a personal experience where you genuinely received gratitude or by deeply imagining someone else receiving genuine help and thanks through a powerful story.
Select a personal or observed narrative that genuinely moves you, then write down 3-4 bullet points as cues, including the state before and after receiving gratitude, and any emotionally impactful elements of the story.
After establishing your gratitude story and bullet points, read them to cue your nervous system and then spend 1-5 minutes (even 60 seconds is effective) deeply feeling the genuine experience of receiving or observing gratitude, returning to the same story repeatedly for potency.
Regularly performing the effective gratitude practice can shift emotion pathways in your brain, making anxiety and fear circuits less active while increasing circuits for well-being and motivation.
Consistent engagement in the described gratitude practice can lead to rapid reductions in amygdala activity (threat detection) and significant decreases in inflammatory cytokines like TNF-alpha and IL-6.
A regular gratitude practice can buffer against the negative psychological and physiological effects of prior traumatic experiences and inoculate against future traumas.
Regularly practicing gratitude can improve your social relationships across all domains, including work, school, family, romantic partnerships, and even your relationship with yourself.
Do not rely on traditional gratitude practices that involve merely writing down or thinking about a list of things you’re grateful for, as these are not shown to be effective in shifting neural or somatic circuitry.
Avoid lying to yourself or ‘faking it until you make it’ when it comes to gratitude, as your brain can discern insincerity, preventing the positive health effects.
When expressing gratitude to others, ensure your thanks are genuine and wholehearted, as reluctant or insincere expressions undermine the positive impact for the receiver.
Optimize your sleeping environment’s temperature, as your body temperature needs to drop 1-3 degrees to fall and stay deeply asleep, and increase 1-3 degrees to wake refreshed.
Incorporate Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) scripts to offset negative effects of slight sleep deprivation, improve falling back asleep if you wake up, and support overall relaxation and recovery.
Consider taking AGZ, a comprehensive sleep supplement, 30-60 minutes before sleep to improve the quality and depth of your sleep.
Steer clear of cookware containing PFAS (forever chemicals) like Teflon, as these toxic compounds are linked to major health issues including hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, and fertility problems.