Mental health starts gratitude challenge

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- The 322nd Expeditionary Medical Group office is rolling out the Gratitude Challenge at the 407th Air Expeditionary Group beginning Nov. 6.

The challenge is designed so that individuals will take a few minutes every day for 21 days to look for positive things in their life.

“We can train our brains to look at things a little bit differently,” said Maj. Michael Glotfelter, 322nd EMDG clinical psychologist. “So if you think about the way our brains are, we look at the world with a lens. Most of what we see in the media is negative, so a lot of us have our brains shaped to look at the lens through a negative view. The idea with the Gratitude Challenge is that is you start to shift the lens.”

Glotfelter went out and handed out materials before the challenge started and some of the Airmen are looking forward to it.

“I want to do the gratuity challenge to have a happier, healthy time here and also to spread joy to others,” said Staff Sgt. Amber Ragas-Taylor, 407th Air Expeditionary Group executive administrator. “Being deployed is hard. You have to be away from family and love ones for a long period of time.”

Glotfelter talked about why this challenge is important while deployed away from family and friends.

“It’s easy while in a deployed location to have that negative lens,” she said. “It helps keep us resilient. We are all away from family and our normal ways to cope, so this gives people different ways to think about things.”

For more information about the challenge, call Mental Health at 318-454-6293.