thankfulness

The Power of Gratitude: Cultivating Appreciation and its Benefits

by John Nolan
10th March 2025

Gratitude in self-help is about appreciating the positive aspects of life. Expressing gratitude can lead to increased happiness, improved well-being, and stronger relationships. Simple habits like daily reflection, keeping a gratitude log, expressing thanks, practising mindful appreciation, and ending the day with positive reflections can help cultivate a more grateful outlook and lead to expressing gratitude more often.

The Power of Gratitude: Cultivating Appreciation and its Benefits10th March 2025
Gratitude in self-help is about appreciating the positive aspects of life. Expressing gratitude can lead to increased happiness, improved well-being, and stronger relationships. Simple habits like daily reflection, keeping a gratitude log, expressing thanks, practising mindful appreciation, and ending the day with positive reflections can help cultivate a more grateful outlook and lead to expressing gratitude more often.
Benefits of Consciously Questioning Anxiety10th March 2025
consciously questioning anxiety offers several key benefits:Distinguishes feelings from facts, creating psychological space. Identifies triggers and underlying causes of anxiety. Facilitates cognitive reframing of negative thoughts. Shifts focus from problems to solution-finding. Promotes cognitive defusion by observing thoughts. Helps organise anxiety's information for action. Develops self-awareness of anxiety responses and unhelpful patterns.By actively engaging with your anxiety through conscious questioning, you can move from feeling overwhelmed by it to becoming an active agent in managing it.
Managing Anxiety in the Workplace: Key Methods10th March 2025
Managing anxiety in the workplace involves a multifaceted approach encompassing solution-focused questioning, acceptance and commitment principles, mindfulness and relaxation techniques, NLP strategies, assertiveness and boundary setting, cognitive reframing, practical organisational tools, and supportive workplace adjustments. By utilising these methods, individuals can develop effective strategies for coping with anxiety and fostering a more positive and productive work experience.
The Contribution of a Stress Therapist in an Organisation9th March 2025
In an organisational setting, the role might lean more towards that of a stress therapist, addressing general workplace pressures and promoting well-being for a broader range of employees. However, they would still need to be equipped to recognise and provide initial support for individuals experiencing significant anxiety. They might also refer employees with diagnosed anxiety disorders to specialist anxiety therapists either within or outside the organisation.
Understanding Somatic Flashbacks and Their Neurological Basis8th March 2025
Somatic flashbacks are the re-experiencing of physical sensations linked to past trauma, often occurring without a full narrative memory. Neurologically, they involve heightened activity in the right brain hemisphere and limbic areas, while areas responsible for logical processing, verbalisation, and sensory integration may be deactivated. Flashbacks can arise due to the way traumatic memories are encoded and stored in the brain, particularly in the amygdala and hippocampus, and can be triggered by sensory reminders. They impact the brain by reinforcing trauma-related neural pathways and disrupting normal cognitive and emotional processing. Strategies to reduce their severity and frequency include grounding techniques, mindfulness, various psychotherapies like SFBT, ACT, Havening, and EMDR, as well as somatic approaches and self-compassion practices.