Every January, millions of Americans resolve to get happier and healthier in the new year through diet and exercise. But there’s another, scientifically-proven practice shaping people’s lives and perspectives, and its power lies in consistency: expressing gratitude.
“I see gratitude as the new happy,” said Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, a licensed clinical and health psychologist. “My role in this is to take that science and apply it in very practical ways so that it has real benefit for people’s lives, and for closing the gap between what they have and what they want — or what they believe they want.”
While gratitude, along with mindfulness and meditation, has long existed as part of spiritual and religious practices, it has grown in the past few decades to become one of the defining skillsets in a new form of mental-health management called positive psychology. Whereas clinical psychology once believed happiness could be maximized by minimizing depression, Dattilo-Ryan said positive psychology teaches “interventions that help us learn and practice how to be happy” long-term.
These research-backed interventions include the now-ubiquitous “gratitude journal,” which was part of one of the first positive psychology interventions study, said Jo-Ann Tsang, professor of psychology at Baylor University.
“[The researchers] asked people to write gratitude journals for several days in a row, or every week for several weeks, and they found not only mental health benefits, but benefits with increased exercise and better sleep quality.”
Tsang said keeping a gratitude journal is one way to brighten one’s “framework of seeing the world.” Furthermore, taking steps to stay actively grateful can highlight other health benefits, such as emotional regulation, increased empathy toward others and improved mental clarity.
For those wanting to start smaller, even simpler efforts, such as writing and actually delivering a gratitude letter to an important person in one’s life, can be just as effective in building patterns of social wellbeing and relationship connectivity.
“Other researchers have asked individuals to just text three people each day,” said Tsang. “You see the repeat nature of this, just [texting] them to say thank you.”
Of course, with this recognition of gratitude comes the recognition of negative emotions that exist beside it. Positive psychology’s popularity has resulted in a commodified stream of wellness influencers, which has opened up new cultural conversations and increased awareness around gratitude practices, but which also threatens to advertise being “grateful for everything.”
As more and more people reflect on what happiness looks like to them, it’s important to remain rooted in realistic practices — a common mistake for those adopting personal health resolutions. Dattilo-Ryan recommends starting with a “powerful” 30-day challenge, in which people write down something for which they are grateful each day, and extracting good elements from bad life experiences through “radical gratitude.”
“Just being thankful for failure or being thankful for disappointment, rejection or heartbreak or bad news [or] a change in plans,” said Dattilo-Ryan. “Out of those comes growth and grace and perseverance, or confidence, resilience, wisdom, acceptance, patience — all of those things that are incredibly good.”
Guests
- Jo-Ann Tsang, professor of psychology at Baylor University
- Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, licensed clinical and health psychologist
