Starting a Gratitude Practice in Pregnancy

 imageGreatest Pregnancy Ever

With Thanksgiving approaching, it is time to reflect on the gifts that gratitude can bring to our lives.  Experiencing gratitude during your pregnancy positively impacts your pregnancy and also the health of your baby.

Pregnancy is the perfect time to assess your perceptions and begin to adopt an attitude of gratitude and optimism. Optimistic people attract what they want. They attract good jobs, good friends, and good experiences; the things and circumstances in life that they want. Optimistic people attract positive things and circumstances because they are always on the lookout for them. If you believe that a good life is possible, opportunities will begin to manifest themselves. The Research Project on Gratitude and Thanksgiving, conducted by McCollough and Emmons, found that people practicing gratitude reported higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, and energy. They also experienced less depression and stress and were more likely to feel loved. In addition, gratitude releases positive hormones supportive for pregnancy. 

People practicing optimism actually stimulate different areas in their brain than people who are pessimistic. The optimistic brain is more likely to create a healthy body; optimists are more likely to have healthier immune systems, live longer, are less depressed, and have overall better performance. In fact, studies have shown the hormones related to optimistic thoughts work better than drugs on patients who are clinically depressed. Your brain is a natural pharmacy, which can be used to your advantage for fertility, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding. Your body and mind are not separate, nor are your feelings separate from your baby’s development.

In fact, optimism can even impact your fertility. One study found that parents who had an attitude of optimism were more likely to become pregnant during in vitro fertilization. Today, many fertility clinics use techniques based in optimism to increase a mother’s fertility.

When you are in a state of gratitude, it heightens your perceptions. It opens your eyes to the goodness of life all around you. It changes the way you see people, events, and situations in your world. When you are grateful, you open yourself up to more good, and by opening up to good you attract it. Isn’t this the world you wish your baby to be born into, a world of gratitude?

What is it that you can find gratitude for this week?

 

Partially excerpted from The Greatest Pregnancy Ever: Keys to the MotherBaby Bond.

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