What is the Best Way to Practice Gratitude?

We all hear about the importance of practicing gratitude, especially this time of year. If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving, you’ll probably go around the table and say what you’re thankful for before you get down to your mashed potatoes. Beyond Thanksgiving, you may have heard the advice that you should make gratitude lists, keep a gratitude journal, or write heartfelt thank-you letters to the important people in your life. All of these activities sound like a great idea in theory, but as a busy parent, you’ve probably wondered if these practices are really worth the effort.

A recent study examine this very question.

Details of the study

Researchers have examined the impact of different ways of expressing gratitude, including whether expressing gratitude is more helpful when it involves other people (such as writing a thank-you letter versus a gratitude list) and when it is expressed in a short or long format (such as list vs. letter or essay). This study involved 958 adults in Australia who were randomly assigned to one of six conditions (see also figure below):

1. Thank You Letters (Social, Longer Format): Writing thank you letters to tell someone why you are grateful to them
2. Gratitude Essays (non-social, longer format): writing essays about things you are grateful for (except people)
3. Social Gratitude Lists (social, shorter format): writing gratitude lists to people you are grateful to
4. Non-Social Gratitude Lists (Non-Social, Longer Format): Writing lists of things you’re grateful for (except people)
5. General Gratitude List: Write a list of things and people you are grateful for
6. Control condition: just write about your daily activities

Participants were asked to do one of these exercises every day for a week. The researchers then looked at the extent to which each of these exercises increased gratitude, improved mood, made participants feel more obligated or connected to someone else, and increased life satisfaction and feelings of uplift (translation: feeling uplifted). An important note: because the participants were randomly assigned, we can know that the gratitude exercises actually caused these psychological benefits.

Main findings

Here are the main findings of the study:

1. Doing some gratitude exercise is better than nothing. Doing any of these gratitude exercises led to greater feelings of gratitude, indebtedness, connectedness, and upliftment (translation: feeling uplifted) compared to simply writing down daily activities.
2. Writing about gratitude in a longer format can make you feel better. The longer writing condition (letter or essay) led to more gratitude, exaltation, indebtedness, positive mood, and life satisfaction than the shorter format of gratitude exercises (that is, gratitude lists).
3. Writing thank you letters can have the most benefits. Participants who wrote thank-you letters showed more positive affect than any other condition. Participants who wrote thank-you letters reported greater feelings of upliftment, positive mood, gratitude, and life satisfaction than those who wrote gratitude lists of people they were grateful to. They showed greater upliftment, gratitude and better mood compared to those who wrote gratitude lists of things they were grateful for, and higher levels of upliftment compared to those who wrote gratitude lists both about things and people and those who have written a gratitude essay things they are grateful for. However, writing thank-you letters also increased feelings of indebtedness more than any of the other conditions.
4. Gratitude lists alone may not be enough. The researchers actually found no differences between writing gratitude lists and writing daily activities. Previous research there is found evidence for the benefits of gratitude lists, so more research is needed to determine whether gratitude lists are worth the effort. One week may not be enough time to see the results of this intervention.
5. Gratitude exercises involving other people make you feel more obligated to them (like you owe them). People who engaged in social gratitude exercises showed greater indebtedness than those who engaged in nonsocial exercises in this study.
6. You have to be consistent to see the positive effects. The researchers had the participants do these exercises every day for a week and then asked them not to do anything for the following week. Researchers found very little impact of gratitude exercises after a week of not doing them, suggesting that you need to continue to practice gratitude regularly to experience the benefits.

Complete translation

We all know that gratitude is important, but how exactly do we increase genuine feelings of gratitude and benefit from the practice of gratitude? Having some kind of gratitude practice sounds great, but we all have limited time and it would be nice to know what gets us the most bang for our buck. This study found that writing thank you letters seems to be the most effective way to practice gratitude. A thank you letter is more than just a letter thanking another person for a gift, it’s a more open-ended opportunity to say why you’re grateful for them as a person. You don’t even have to send the letter to the person (in most research studies they don’t ask participants to send it) and you can even write it to a loved one who has passed away or to God or your Higher Power. If you don’t have time for a letter, try sending a text message or verbally expressing your gratitude to someone. You will likely make both yourself and the other person feel better!