SUPPORTING YOUR HEALING SINCE 1994
Gratitude: It Really Is for You
By Philip Buttenfield, LCSW, JD
Winter, 2006, Volume 3, Number 1
The gokai, or Five Principles, of Reiki tell us, in part, "Show gratitude". This is rather more than a simple admonition to us to mind our "P's and Qs"; it is, instead, a reminder to be mindful at all times of the gifts bestowed upon us, not only by friends and family, but by God, nature and the universe. It is a reminder to live in recognition that everything in life, even life itself, is a gift. It is not difficult to see how different the world would be if each of us approached our life in this manner.
Nor is it particularly hard to imagine how different our individual lives would look if we demonstrated gratitude on a regular basis. Recent developments in "alternative" medicine now provide hard data on how gratitude affects our emotional and physical well-being, and scientifically validate the practice of showing gratitude.
"Cardiac coherence"-which can be seen as a harmonious wave on a specially designed biofeedback screen-reflects a desirably gentle acceleration and deceleration of heart rate. Research has shown that our hearts do not beat at a steady rate, but in fact naturally change speed from beat to beat according to any number of factors, both environmental and internal, emotional and physical.
This change of speed is called "heart rate variability", and it is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, which produces adrenaline, among other chemicals ("the accelerator") and the parasympathetic nervous system, which produces acetylcholine ("the decelerator"). A smooth and rhythmic heart rate variability indicates a finely tuned balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. A jagged, disorganized pattern of heart rate variability, on the other hand, indicates a chaotic imbalance between those systems.
According to researchers, chaotic heart rate variability is a sign of aging and stress, and indicates that the heart is very good at speeding up, but has suffered atrophy of its ability to slow down. It is also, unfortunately, vastly more common than coherence. A brief consideration of the demands of modern life, with its increasingly high levels of stress, tells us why this should be so. Chaotic heart rate variability is associated with a host of physical and mental health problems, including high blood pressure, heart attack, depression and anxiety, to name only a few.
It is, however, possible for each of us to take a chaotic heart rate variability and restore it to a state of coherence, and by so doing return to a state of physical and mental health. This is accomplished through a combination of breathing exercises and the generation of a positive emotional state. And-now we come to the point of this exposition, the "heart of the matter", you might say-those who work with cardiac coherence have found that one of the most powerful positive emotions is gratitude, sincere, simple heartfelt gratitude.
The message is clear, and all too simple: show gratitude, feel better. And it doesn't require a host of scientists to tell us this for us to know it is true. After all, this is not rocket science, just Reiki.
