Welcome all,
The first post of the Envision Blog is here. A manifestation of the idea to create and maintain balance for myself while being able to help provide information to others is finally becoming a reality. Before getting off track let me first thank a few people who have made EnvisionBalance.com possible.
Jesse Melanson is the websites designer for which I give credit to for the beautiful banners, backgrounds, and layout design. His website (www.JesseMelanson.com) showcases some of the incredibly inventive and visionary work that he's been creating in video, sound, and photography. A great person to work with and a good friend to have, Jesse has been an integral part in making my vision become a reality and my Thanks goes out to him.
To my family, Thank You for all of the support and Thank You for allowing me to pursue my interests throughout my life. Your love and selflessness has been a life lesson that I respect and words cannot describe the amount of appreciation that I have. Thank you.
To my friends, Thank you for being there and I truly feel very lucky to have had people with such big hearts in my life. I've learned so much from you all and I'm grateful for the time I've been able to spend with you.
The importance of Thanks is something that not only feels good but is being shown to have real world scientific implications for people. I stumbled across an article a little while ago that helped drive home the point of being thankful. (Which can be found here... http://advice.eharmony.com/article/the-importance-of-giving-thanks.html ) In the article Dr. Galen Buckwalter reviews a book by Dr. Robert A. Emmons fittingly entitled "thanks!" wherein Emmons published a study in 2003 regarding the importance thanks has on peoples psychological well-being. What did the results find? Well, I would suggest reading the linked article, but a summary would show that the group of people in the study who made a point to show gratitude towards things in their lives were found to be more optimistic, feel better about their lives, exercise more, and have less physical complaints than the groups that did not write what they were grateful for or instead wrote down hassles in their life. Another follow up study by Emmons found that quality and quantity of sleep were also improved in people suffering of chronic pain along with the increased optimism.
There are many more studies that can be found linking gratitude and well-being that you can check out if you feel inclined such as :
Wood, A. M., Joseph, S. & Maltby (2009). Gratitude predicts psychological well-being above the Big Five facets. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 655-660.
Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., Lloyd, J., & Atkins, S. (2009). Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 66, 43-48
Or, if you'd like to put this into action there are many ways to do so. Here are some examples.
-Make a list for what you're grateful for and use it to your discretion. Sometimes we need to be reminded of what we're grateful for on a daily basis and other times we only need casual reminders when things have you stuck in a rut.
-Keep a journal. Same reviewing applies.
-Start a blog. Using the motivation of creating something beyond yourself that has the potential to reach people and help them in ways not immediately foreseen is the route I've chosen to take. My goal is to be able to share some perspectives and insights with you and try to keep myself balanced at the same time. Everyone has a balance point for themselves, discovering what keeps you balanced and enjoying life and all it has to offer is what inspires me. I appreciate all comments that you have and I love sharing great conversation so please feel free to post. Thank you for taking time out of your busy life to visit my site and I hope you come back to visit often.
What are you thankful for? Please feel free to share below in the comments section.
Until next time,
-Jesse
