Gratitude journal: what it is, how to keep one, examples and research

A gratitude journal is a journal where you regularly note things you are thankful for. An entry is usually three to five items, and most are not big events but small details of the day: “I got a seat on the bus”, “my brother called”, “lunch was good”.

Some people practice it as part of their faith, but that is not required. In psychology research, it means deliberately turning your attention to what went well.

One of the most cited studies in the field was published in 2003 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Participants were randomly assigned to groups: one recorded things they were grateful for, one recorded daily hassles and another recorded neutral events. The gratitude groups showed higher well-being on several, though not all, outcome measures; the most robust finding was an increase in positive emotions.

A placebo controlled online study published in 2005 in American Psychologist tested five exercises. People who wrote down three things that went well each evening for one week, along with their causes, became happier and reported fewer depressive symptoms, and the effect lasted six months. Writing and delivering a thank you letter produced the largest change, but it faded after about a month.

A meta-analysis balances the picture. Published in 2016 in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, it found that gratitude exercises improved psychological well-being compared with doing nothing, but the effect was small. Compared with another psychologically active exercise, gratitude exercises were as good as, but not better than, the alternative. No significant effect on anxiety was found.

1. 1Pick a moment. The evening, when the day is done, is the most common choice. Studies have tested both nightly and weekly versions; the frequency you can sustain is the right one.
2. 2Write three things. Three is easy and still meaningful. On a hard day, one is enough.
3. 3Add the reason next to each one. Not “The coffee was good” but “The coffee was good because for once I drank it without rushing.” Asking why keeps the entry from becoming rote.
4. 4Be specific. General headings like health or family quickly turn into repetition. Write a detail that belongs to today.
5. 5Include people. Writing about someone who was kind to you often means more than writing about a thing.
6. 6Read back once a week. Accumulated lists help most when you read them in the middle of a hard week.

Three example items from the same day. Each one is short, specific and tied to a reason:

• “The sun came out on my walk to work. After a whole week of rain, it was the first time I felt it on my face.”
• “Sarah backed my idea in the meeting. I felt I was not alone.”
• “Dinner was just pasta, but I had time to cook for myself.”

On a hard day the list might look like this: “Today was hard. Still, Mom called, I had a hot shower and I got through the day.” Accepting a hard day as it is and setting one small good thing next to it is the most honest form of a gratitude journal.

The exercise from the 2005 study is now known as “three good things”. The UK's National Health Service (NHS) also lists writing down three things that went well each day among its tips to reduce stress. The method is this simple:

1. 1In the evening, write down three things that went well that day.
2. 2Explain in one sentence why each one went well.
3. 3Repeat every evening for a week, then decide whether to continue.

For more prompts, see the gratitude section in our 60 journal prompts.

• Writing the same list every day. “My family, my health, my home” loses its meaning after a few days. Look for a detail from today.
• Covering up hard feelings. Telling yourself “I should be grateful” to push sadness away does not work. You can write the hard feeling too; gratitude goes next to it, not in place of it.
• Comparing yourself with others. “Others have it worse” often produces guilt rather than gratitude. Look at your own day.
• Forcing long entries. A single item is still an entry.

If you are grieving, going through a heavy loss or a long low period, “write down the good things” can feel like a burden. That is normal. In those times, naming the feeling as it is, for example in a mood journal, may fit better.

The NHS advises seeing a doctor if you have had symptoms of depression for most of the day, every day, for more than two weeks. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself or are in an emergency, call your local emergency number right away (112 in Türkiye and across the EU).

Pixmood has no separate gratitude template, but the method adapts easily. In the evening you mark your day by tapping one of five moods, then write the day's three good things in the note field, which holds up to 1,000 characters. A one word tag such as “gratitude” makes these entries easy to find later.

Days with a note become glass orbs in the Memory Pool, so in a hard week the good days are one tap away. “On this day” brings back your list from a year ago. Your entries stay on your phone; there is no account and no server.

The limit: Pixmood does not let you fill in past days, so you cannot add a forgotten evening's list the next day. For longer writing, such as a thank you letter, a notebook is a better fit.