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Researchers at Kent State have found that expressing gratitude in writing can improve health and happiness.
They enlisted students to explore the effect of writing letters of
gratitude to people who had positively affected the students’ lives.
Over six weeks, the students wrote one letter every two weeks that
satisfied simple ground rules: the letters had to be positively
expressive, require some insight and reflection, be nontrivial and
contain a high level of appreciation or gratitude. The letters could
not be mere thank-you notes. On average, the students spent 10-15
minutes on each letter.
After each letter, students completed a survey to gauge their moods,
satisfaction with life, and feelings of gratitude and happiness. The
lead researcher observed that the students’ happiness increased after
each letter, meaning the more they wrote, the better they felt. He also
reported improvement in their life satisfaction and gratitude
throughout the study. Seventy-five percent of the participants said
they planned to continue to write letters of gratitude.
Oprah would approve.
