Sunday Gratitude!

Image of a long dock over a body of water with the word “Gratitude” in large letters at the top. Additional text reads, “We’re a nation hungry for more joy because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude,” by author Brene Brown.

What or who are you grateful for today? What went well this past week?

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading Brené Brown’s “The Gifts of Imperfection” and there are many fabulous takeaways, but this statement struck a chord: "We’re a nation hungry for more joy because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude."

Things can look pretty grim out there these days, and in order to survive the intense emotions neurodivergent individuals struggle with due to emotional hyperarousal, it's more important than ever to develop a habit of looking for the good. It's always there if you look for it—the color of the sky, the air current on your skin, the texture of the grass, the undertones of your dog's fur, the footsteps of a loved one. Recognizing the good is critical for our emotional and physical health.

I post about gratitude many Sundays because there's a scientific reason to develop the practice. It's all about neuroplasticity and how it benefits neurodivergent brains and nervous systems.

Neurodivergent people navigate life with emotional hyperarousal which is related to the fight or flight response and the survival portions of the brain. Some days this can be really difficult to manage.

When we focus on what we're grateful for—even for a few minutes each day—we engage the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which is the "learning" part of our brain. When the PFC is engaged, the "survival" part of the brain is NOT engaged—it's essentially "off", providing a break from ruminations, and negative thoughts and emotions.

When you regularly engage in a gratitude practice, you build new neural pathways in the PFC. The PFC is where the executive functions operate from (short-term memory, attention, planning, etc.), and any amount of time spent building new neural pathways there benefits the ADHD brain and nervous system significantly, literally increasing your gray matter.

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