Neuroscience confirms LK10 Practices (#1)

Neuroscience confirms LK10 Practices (#1)
October 20, 2015  

A recent article in Time magazine about the work of UCLA neuroscience researcher, Alex Korb, confirms some of our basic LK10 Practices.  (Which we get straight from Scripture!)  (Thank you to Barb Lidfors, LK10 Coordinator for Germany, for sending this!)

Here's the first practice...  

1)  The most important question to ask when you feel down?

So what do neuroscientists say you should do? Ask yourself this question:  What am I grateful for?

Yeah, gratitude is awesome… but does it really affect your brain at the biological level? Yup.  You know what the antidepressant Wellbutrin does? Boosts the neurotransmitter dopamine. So does gratitude.
The benefits of gratitude start with the dopamine system, because feeling grateful activates the brain stem region that produces dopamine. Additionally, gratitude toward others increases activity in social dopamine circuits, which makes social interactions more enjoyable. Know what Prozac does? Boosts the neurotransmitter serotonin. So does gratitude. 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. It’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…

JW:  I'll share the second practice in my next Newsletter.  You will be amazed at what it is!  And, during the month of November, we will be introducing a powerful way of your deepening gratitude called "interactive gratitude".

For the whole article, go to http://time.com/4042834/neuroscience-happy-rituals