Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

It’s Thanksgiving but some people to your right or left will give anything but thanks at your feast, without a bit of help. You can sprinkle gratitude into the most emotionally charged day, simply by throwing a few brains into the mix.... Before people sit down, for instance, laugh at the little things. To laugh at yourself first, will spark enzymes in people's brains and add well-being before the dinner even begins.

In fact, for people who’ve wired their brains for anything but thanks, since they launched last year’s fiasco, it’s almost impossible to fire up dendrite brain cells now to express thanks... at least,  without help.  And before their words unravel your table into trouble.

Here are 5 brain based tactics that tame the turkeys and up the thankful tone for a fun holiday feast. Want fewer grudges and less need to defend people's inappropriate words or poor behavior?  Then ...

1. Offer small gifts to each guest. It could be a name tag with one thing you feel thankful for in that person. Your personal touch will add serotonin, the hormone that  rises when people feel genuinely valued.

2. Surprise guests with a change by sitting in a different room, playing a favorite CD in background during dinner, or ask a different person to say the blessing ahead. Changes create distance from old patterns, and create opportunities for the brain to create synapses to act in more appropriate ways.

3. Come to the table rested and relaxed, and you will model a tone that finds solutions to turnaround that first infraction from cousin Fred. Be prepared for it, and have a positive word ready to fire back before bad behavior takes root.

4. Serve lots of water – with lemon slices if you like, but water irrigates the brain and prevents irritability at gatherings, in ways that may surprise you. Most people drink far too little water for a healthy brain, and negative affects will pop out because without water, people feel stressed or offended faster.

5. Start your dinner by inviting each person to give thanks for one thing in the last week. Such a two-footed questions keeps the tone fresh. People tend to piggy back off one other’s insights from thanks, so cortisol diminishes, that horrid hormone for stress and negativity.

By now, laughter will be far easier, because you built a mental climate for thanksgiving within the entire group. Ok, grouches excepted.... Others who build neuron pathways for thankfulness will jump in to help though- just watch.  People who've learned to laugh lots, for example, will make others laugh. Thankfulness has a way of rolling once you give it a chance.

It’s also the way the brain works best, so why not make the most of mental resources you already possess, to tame the turkey at your holiday table. Happy Thanksgiving!