Gratitude journals

A couple of years ago I got involved in an "increase your happiness" project through a university. I dropped out when my ankle and then my pancreas fell apart because at that point I found it really hard to keep a gratitude journal.
Then a few days ago I found a gratitude journal app for the iphone, and I remembered that while I was keeping the gratitude journal I did, indeed, feel some good effects. Here are two examples of the research I found on the internet about this particular kind of journaling:


Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis
Gratitude Interventions and Psychological and Physical Well-Being

In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

In a sample of adults with neuromuscular disease, a 21-day gratitude intervention resulted in greater amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group.

Well-Being: Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

Prosociality: People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others. They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

Prof. Robert Emmons studies gratitude for a living as Professor of Psychology at UC Davis and is Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology. He has just published Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier , an interdisciplinary book that provides a research-based synthesis of the topic as well as practical suggestions.
What are the 3 key messages that you would like readers to take away from your book?
First, the practice of gratitude can increase happiness levels by around 25%. Second, this is not hard to achieve - a few hours writing a gratitude journal over 3 weeks can create an effect that lasts 6 months if not more. Third, that cultivating gratitude brings other health effects, such as longer and better quality sleep time.


How can you lose? I've often counted over all of the big reasons I have to be grateful, from family and friends through the good people at the hospital all the way down to the availability of saunas, but maybe it's time to start the project again (and I challenge you to try it, too). The rules are that every day you write down five things, preferably that have happened that day, for which you are grateful. I'll do this on my own time, not here, but I wanted to share the concept with you. Besides, it's only 8:40 a.m. and I already have five, some bigger than others, but all good.
1. Both Take Five and Lush Life played on my iphone during my morning walk.
2. The cat spent our meditation time trying to lick my nose and totally destroyed my focus.
3. Coffee tastes sooooo good again.
4. An email from my publisher says that Borders has ordered an amazing number of the ELL text I wrote years ago.
5. The rest of the day includes two of my favorite things: a get-together with the Top of the Hill Friends and, this evening, yoga.
And each of these branches into so many other things that I'm thankful for that I could spend the rest of the day writing, which in itself I appreciate every day.
It never stops.