Why should we practice gratitude?

According to experts, gratitude has been shown to have a multitude of benefits on our mental health and wellbeing—and even on our social relationships with other people. “Psychologically, it is associated with greater optimism, happiness, alertness, and overall positivity,” says Dr. Little. “Socially, it is associated with more helpful, generous, and compassionate behavior, a tendency to be more forgiving, diminished feelings of isolation and loneliness, and both building and maintaining better relationships.”

In fact, research specifically shows that “people who regularly engage in a practice of gratitude report being more optimistic and feeling more hopeful,” says Wiley. In one key 2003 study conducted by leading psychologists and gratitude experts Dr. Robert A. Emmons and Dr. Michael E. McCullough, people who wrote down things they were grateful for during a period of 10 weeks had considerably more positive changes in their mood than those who wrote about wrote about things that annoyed them or those who merely wrote about life events—including feeling more optimistic about the upcoming week, more connected with other people, and more satisfied with their lives as a whole.

The benefits extended beyond just mental wellbeing, too. In the same study, those who wrote about things they were grateful for also reported fewer physical complaints, more time exercising, and longer sleep duration as well as better sleep quality than the other two groups. “Physically, [gratitude] is associated with lowered blood pressure, better sleep, fewer aches and pains, and stronger immune systems,” notes Dr. Little.