H.O.P.E. Course: ENJOY the Little Things

Hello, it's Deana. Again. This is the fourth and final video in the HOPE course and we are talking about enjoying the little things. What is something you enjoy doing each day, something as simple as brushing your teeth, or a specific food you like. Maybe you'd like to take a walk and your favorite flowers blooming. Maybe you get to see a friend that you don't get to see that often. I want to talk about gratefulness. Believe it or not. Being grateful helps us feel more positive emotions and improves our health. It helps us deal with adversity, and it helps build strong relationships. Gratefulness can boost neurotransmitter serotonin, and activate the brain stem to produce dopamine. Dopamine is your brain's pleasure chemical.

In simpler form, gratitude makes us happier. It releases stress, improves self esteem. It helps us be more resilient. It helps us sleep. It helps our physical health, and it improves our relationships. Kindness is similar. Say hello or open the door for a stranger and you will get a boost of energy and confidence. In conclusion, gratitude and kindness go a long way to help yourself be happier and more fulfilled. I'm going to leave you with an exercise.

We have what we call gratitude dice, or gratitude starters, you can get them in different forms. Some of them are cards and different things. But we have dice. And we have this one has all the alphabet. And this one has numbers. So we roll it in. And like I got five things beginning with a T. So if we had a group of people, we would go around the room would say, what are five things that you're grateful for starting with the letter T. So I'll have to think of them. You see my toothbrush, my toothpaste, I like to talk to my friends. Maybe it is togetherness, like, you know, being with friends or watching a movie or playing a game or going for a walk. And I would say what's my fifth one. My fifth one would be maybe it's talking a different way on phone to my mom or whoever it is that I don't get to see on a regular basis. So that's how the grateful dice work. And you can just pick a letter and a number. And do this on your own. And if you if you have a hard time thinking of things with a T, you can also think of you know other things that you're grateful for, that don't belong with that letter. You can also you know, write three things down every day that you're grateful for in the morning or at night or whatever time of day works for you. So I hope that helps. Being grateful really does help us focus on the positive in our life and helps us focus on what's good in our life. And it gives us those, those endorphins and that dopamine to make us feel better.