Gratitude Journal

The writing habit has been difficult to cultivate... My writing resolution has been coming along pretty well so far, but I haven't been perfect. I have missed a post, I think, and there have been some skipped days of work writing (usually because of unexpectedly involved grading tasks). I have been keeping up on my creative writing, though, which makes me happy. And my gratitude journal has no skipped days. In fact, just now I found myself going back over my morning in my mind, scanning for the positive things that have already happened this morning.

Naturally, I wanted to read up on a bit of the background research that has been done on gratitude, and see whether there was a correlation between practiced gratitude and well-being. As one would expect, I found lots of studies. This one, by Emmons and McCullough (2003), is cited in several other publications and looks like it gives some reasonably solid evidence of happiness via gratitude. If you want some "firm" findings to back what some might think of as the hippie-dippy notion that being thankful can make a person happier, but you don't want to pour over the entire article (which is 12 pages of text), here is the abstract:

The effect of a grateful outlook on psychological and physical well-being was examined. In Studies 1and 2, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions (hassles, gratitude listing, and either neutral life events or social comparison); they then kept weekly (Study 1) or daily (Study 2) records of their moods, coping behaviors, health behaviors, physical symptoms, and overall life appraisals. In a 3rd study, persons with neuromuscular disease were randomly assigned to either the gratitude condition or to a control condition. The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.

Emmons, R.A.& McCullough, M.E. 2003. "Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2): 377-389.

All I can say is, I already see results. I enjoy the time I spend at the end of the day reflecting on the good things that have happened to me and around me, and am often really pleased to find there are too many things to choose from to only write one entry a day. (So sometimes I write more.) It's an excellent way to remind oneself of all the good that is often taken for granted.