Practicing gratitude

It is an interesting time of year.

The mid-term elections are over, the days are shorter, and the holidays are picking up speed. Some businesses will have their peak of profits over the next week, while others are slowing down as their staff takes holidays and focuses on family, food, and snagging the best black Friday deals.

Some businesses are preparing for year end. Reflecting on accomplishments, balance sheets and wrapping up projects. On a personal level many will take time this week in particular to practice gratitude.

Gratitude makes everything enough. This is a quote I love, and have mentioned before in previous articles. It’s a valuable mindset, be it a constant practice or only around the table at Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas morning.

During the holiday season and year end pausing for a few moments to focus on gratitude can be a buoy in a sea of hurry and busy. Science shows gratitude improves physical and psychological health, helps people sleep better, increases mental strength, reduces aggression, and improves self-esteem. Wow, why are we not doing more of this?

Here are a few things we can be grateful for as residents of Green River. We have a very low crime rate that is 51 percent lower than the national average.

We live in an excellent school district with high ratings. Our median household income is about 15 percent above the national average (Green River: $72,656 National: $61,372).

And, we have some great heathy lifestyle indicators with 74 percent of adults in Sweetwater County physically active and 81 percent of adults are non-smokers.

Personally, I’m grateful to live in Green River. I appreciate being able to live and work in a city surrounded by beautiful landscape with a lot of access to nature. I’ve live many place that I have to drive to get to open, natural spaces.

Our city is affordable by national standards, with higher than average household income and housing prices a little lower than the national average. Daycare is very affordable, taxes are low, and we don’t have traffic. I could go on.

I hope you find a way to practice gratitude as a part of your lifestyle. The benefits are great, and it’s available to us all. And I hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving.