It’s Veterans Day!  A day designated as a national holiday to honor all who have served in the armed forces to defend our liberties!   A National Holiday!  How nice that my 7 year old grandson could tell me why he would have no school on Tuesday: “because it’s Veterans Day”.  At his elementary school on Friday there was a whole school assembly where they talked about what it means to be a soldier, of defending freedom and of bravery and courage.  Caleb really got the message.

How shall we celebrate Veterans Day?  How about a mega dose of Vitamin G!  GRATITUDE!  This is one vitamin that you are not going to find in any particular fruit or vegetable, at least not directly.  Are you grateful  for all the healthy foods we get to enjoy?  Me too!  Up goes our Vit G!

Fellow Oatie, Karen, beautifully opened up this subject in her blog yesterday The power of “Thank You”.  I’m grateful for her great information!  Oh, there goes my Vit G ..

Does gratitude improve your health?  Ahhh, yes!  In a recent study, healthcare practitioners, a group known to experience chronic occupational stress, were divided into 3 different participant groups:
●   Group #1  –  did a journal entry, twice a week for 4 week, on hassles that they experienced at work
●   Group #2  –  did a journal entry, twice a week for 4 week, on things they were grateful for at work
●   Group #3  –  business as usual.
The results were great!  There were basically no differences in the business-as-usual group and the hassle group.  The grateful group had marked improvement of feelings of stress and depression.   The study conclusion?  “Taking stock in thankful events is an effective approach to reduce stress and depressive symptoms among health care practitioners.”  Now, you might not be a healthcare practitioner, but I’m sure you can figure out that it would probably be good for you too!

Today is the 60^th anniversary of the first official Veterans Day  –  Nov 11, 1954!  It feels weird to say Happy Veterans Day  … it’s not really happy.  It’s a day for honoring our many veterans.  A day to feel truly grateful for our men and women who have placed themselves in harm’s way for us.  Let’s show them some extra love, respect and gratitude  –  it’s the patriotic thing to do!  Your Vitamin G will go up, and the veterans’ will too  –  because they’ll be grateful that you remembered!   Gratitude feels good!