I — and everybody — seems to enjoy it when neurochemical research links the seemingly distant mysteries of the brain to real everyday behavior, to feel-good acts, and such.

I am not sure that it is the stuff people should spend their whole careers on.  But a single association  between neurochemistry and holding hands has been enough for a previous posting.

Now the association between feelings of gratitude and lowered cortisol has delighted me so there is a smile on my face. I guess this is because it validates some of the pure observation from life kind of anecdotal advice that my grandmother of blessed memory would come up with.  Things like “Roughage is good for you,” which later became “eat
fiber.”

The idea that gratitude is good for brain chemistry is so delightful and potentially validating for otherwise not too tough to validate behavior, that it has been joyously co-opted by coaches.  They are an entrepreneurial lot who never bother with footnotes, not any more than they do with credentials.  I mean, there is no regulation known to me about using the nomenclature “coach.”  But on the other hand, they build careers and get paid with the results of their ministrations, a situation which I believe would send a fair amount of physicians to the poorhouse. Read more on Lower Cortisol By Giving Thanks…