Happiness Break: Feel more Gratitude, With Eve Ekman

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Renew your sense of gratitude by remembering acts of kindness, with social scientist and meditation teacher Eve Ekman.

Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/kjkzpdk8

How to Do This Practice:

Begin the practice by focusing on your breath and settling your mind and body. Notice any physical sensations that arise.
Shift your attention away from your body, recalling a time in the last week where you received kindness. Think about the details of the event, and notice how you react to this kindness.
Next, focus on a recent experience where you extended kindness. As you relive this event in your mind, allow yourself to be filled with the feeling of kindness.
Reconnect with the physical sensations in your body, acknowledging that it is full of gratitude.

Today’s Happiness Break host:

Eve Ekman is a contemplative social scientist and meditation teacher from San Francisco, California.

Learn more about Eve’s work: https://tinyurl.com/2vhuarh8

Find out about Eve’s Emotional trainings with Cultivating Emotional Balance: https://tinyurl.com/5n95m7yx

Explore Eve’s Project, The Atlas of Emotions: https://tinyurl.com/mt75ytm3

Follow Eve on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/3txahape

More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/2f78cywf

Tips for Keeping a Gratitude Journal: https://tinyurl.com/4uyu9pud

Why Gratitude Is Good: https://tinyurl.com/5n88p589

How Gratitude Motivates Us to Become Better People: https://tinyurl.com/3jzr7jfm

Three Surprising Ways That Gratitude Works at Work: https://tinyurl.com/4f5m9hde

We love hearing from you! How do you express gratitude? Email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus

Help us share Happiness Break! Rate us and copy and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus

We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to happiness break, a series by the science of happiness,
0:06.1	where we take a few minutes out of the day to try to practice shown by science to support our well-being.
0:10.5	I'm Dacker Keltner. Welcome. Today's happiness break is a gratitude
0:16.0	meditation, one that focuses on recalling acts of kindness that we've received. In doing so studies show we're countering our
0:25.8	biases to ruminate on the back. We also know from studies that experiencing and
0:30.6	expressing gratitude can reduce inflammation, lower cortisol level. experiencing and
0:35.0	help us form stronger relationships,
0:38.0	one of the most significant determinants of health.
0:41.0	This meditation is led by Dr. Eve Ekman, a contemplative social
0:46.0	scientist and meditation teacher who I happen to have known since she was seven years old.
0:52.1	Here's Eve.
0:52.8	I'm Eveckman. I'm going to offer you a meditation on gratitude, one that focuses on feeling gratitude for acts of kindness,
1:07.0	both acts that we receive and acts that we extend of kindness towards others. Let's begin by settling the body and mind.
1:27.0	Feel the whole body being supported by the chair or couch or floor beneath you. As we breathe in we have a sense of really being able to expand and extend our
1:39.3	breath. As we breathe out, allow the breath to be a bit longer, settling in.
1:48.0	And two more breaths here, extending the inhale just as much as feels comfortable.
2:27.4	And lengthening the exhale. taking a moment to just notice the sensations in the body, noticing what it feels like to be in the body from within the body itself.
2:30.4	So noticing maybe the area of the chest or belly,
2:35.0	noticing the face.
2:40.0	Not as though we're looking down upon these areas,
2:42.0	but feeling them from within the body into memory imagination in the mind.
3:07.4	Consider a time in the last week when you received kindness.
	...

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