Gratitude helps a little, and saying thanks to someone helps more

Key takeaways

• In a 2026 experiment with 10,696 people in 34 countries, brief gratitude practices lifted mood right away, and sending a thank-you message scored highest, though the six practices differed only slightly.
• A 2025 analysis of 145 research papers covering nearly 25,000 people found that gratitude practices raise well-being by a small amount.
• For depression and anxiety, a review of 27 studies found only small effects, so treat gratitude as a complement to care, not a replacement.
• People who write thank-you letters underestimate how happy and surprised the person who gets one will feel, and overestimate how awkward it will be.
• More isn’t always better: in one small study, counting blessings once a week raised well-being, while three times a week did not.

In May 2026, a team of 36 researchers published what they called a multinational megastudy of gratitude¹². They recruited 10,696 people across 34 countries. Each person was assigned by chance to one of six short gratitude practices or to one of three ordinary tasks, like filling out a questionnaire.

The gratitude practices lifted people’s mood right away¹. The gap was modest, and it was strongest for good feelings in the moment.

The surprise was how little the choice of practice mattered. The study’s summary reports that results barely differed from one practice to the next¹. A report from Brazil’s research funding agency, FAPESP, did name a leader: writing a message to someone you’re grateful to and sending it². The familiar list of five things you’re thankful for came last.

Where people lived mattered more. The effects were strongest in Mexico and almost absent in Norway².

That study sums up what two decades of research show. Gratitude practices help, a little. They are not a cure, and they shouldn’t be used to wave away real problems.

Here is what the evidence shows, rated on a four-level scale, and how to practice in a way that fits your life.

The famous first study was smaller and more mixed than its legend

One of the best-known gratitude studies is a 2003 paper by psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough³. It reported three experiments, and the results were more varied than many retellings suggest.

In the first, 192 college students wrote down things they were grateful for, once a week for nine weeks³. Others wrote about hassles or about neutral events. The gratitude group rated their lives a bit higher, felt more hopeful about the coming week and reported fewer physical complaints.

They also exercised about 4.4 hours a week, compared with about 3 hours in the hassles group³. But they did not exercise significantly more than the neutral-events group.

The second experiment asked 157 students to keep daily lists for about two weeks³. The gratitude group felt more positive than the hassles group and was more likely to say they had offered someone emotional support. But there were no differences in physical symptoms, exercise or sleep.

The third study is the most moving. It followed 65 adults with neuromuscular diseases, conditions that weaken the muscles, for three weeks³. Those who kept daily gratitude lists slept about half an hour more per night, 7.58 hours compared with 7.06, and woke feeling more refreshed. Their spouses or partners rated their life satisfaction higher.

Their pain and physical function did not change³. The authors themselves noted that not all findings repeated across studies, and that they didn’t know how long the effects would last.

Pooled studies agree: the effect is real, and it is small

When researchers pool many studies, they get a clearer picture than any single trial can give. A large analysis of this kind appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in July 2025⁴. It combined 145 papers, with 24,804 people in 28 countries.

Gratitude practices raised well-being by a small amount⁴. The effect was larger when researchers measured positive feelings, and when people did more than one kind of gratitude practice. Effects also differed from country to country, and none of the factors the researchers tested explained why.

An earlier analysis, published in 2016 by Davis and colleagues, compared gratitude exercises with other active tasks⁵. As summarized in a 2024 paper, gratitude practices raised feelings of gratitude by a medium amount and well-being by a small amount, but did not ease anxiety. The Davis team urged readers to temper their enthusiasm.

The 2026 megastudy fits that pattern¹. Compared with ordinary tasks, the practices boosted positive feelings the most, and gains in life satisfaction were smaller. Overall, results varied more by country than by which practice people tried.

The authors drew a careful conclusion. In a country chosen at random, you can expect a gratitude practice to lift positive mood, but not, with confidence, any of the other outcomes they measured¹.

Gratitude is a complement to care, not a treatment

In a review first published online in 2020, Ohio State University researchers David Cregg and Jennifer Cheavens pooled 27 studies with 3,675 people to ask a pointed question: do gratitude exercises ease symptoms of depression and anxiety⁶?

The answer was yes, a little. The effect was small right after the exercises and still small at follow-up⁶. It was larger when gratitude was compared with doing nothing than when it was compared with another activity, such as writing about a class schedule⁶⁷.

The authors called the effects “relatively modest”⁶. Cheavens said gratitude “would not be something you would recommend as a treatment” for depression or anxiety⁷. She suggested that people who are depressed may also find these exercises hard to carry out.

Cregg added a point worth keeping. People who are grateful by nature tend to struggle less with mental health and to get along better with others, and gratitude has value in its own right⁷. It just isn’t a cure-all.

Clinicians see a risk here. In 2024 interviews, 17 mental health professionals and researchers said gratitude exercises can feel invalidating to someone in acute distress⁵. They recommended gratitude as an add-on to other help, not the main tool.

If you’re dealing with low mood that won’t lift, the National Institute of Mental Health lists talk therapy and medication among the treatments that help, and FindTreatment.gov can help you locate care⁸. If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. In a life-threatening emergency, call 911.

Thanking a person gives the biggest quick boost

In FAPESP’s account of the 2026 megastudy, the practices built around connection with other people did best, with a sent thank-you message at the top². The study’s own summary adds a caution: the gaps between practices were small¹. So the case for reaching out rests on more than this one study.

An earlier trial pointed the same way. In 2005, Martin Seligman and colleagues tested five exercises with 411 adults recruited online⁹. One was a “gratitude visit”: write a letter thanking someone who made a difference in your life, then read it to that person⁷.

The gratitude visit produced the biggest boost of any exercise in the study⁹. The lift held for a month but was gone by the three-month check. A quieter exercise, writing down three things that went well each day and reflecting on them⁷, kept people happier and less depressed for six months⁹. People who kept practicing on their own after the first week did best.

So why don’t we thank people more often? Research by Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley, then at the University of Chicago, offers a clue¹⁰. Across four experiments published in 2018, people who wrote thank-you letters underestimated how surprised and pleased the recipients would be. They also overestimated how awkward the recipient would feel.

Writers judged themselves on how well they expressed their thanks, while recipients focused on the kindness and intent behind it¹⁰. Kumar and Epley suggested that worry about saying it well may be the main thing holding people back.

Faith traditions have long made thanksgiving part of prayer, and researchers have started to include it. One of the six practices in the 2026 megastudy was writing a letter of thanks to God, a higher power or a spiritual being². Like the others, it was compared with ordinary tasks.

How often to practice, and why forcing it backfires

You might expect that more gratitude means more benefit. The research doesn’t say so.

Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues describe a six-week study in which people counted their blessings¹¹. Those who did it once a week reported higher well-being than a comparison group. Those who did it three times a week did not.

One small study can’t settle the right dose. Other research has used daily lists³, and the lead author of a 2024 Harvard study noted that past work suggests writing or talking about gratitude a few times a week¹². The lesson is that a practice should stay fresh, not turn into a chore.

Motivation matters as much as frequency. In a 2011 experiment by Lyubomirsky’s team, 330 students wrote for about 15 minutes a week for eight weeks¹¹. Some wrote gratitude letters they didn’t send. Others wrote about their best possible future, and a third group listed the week’s activities.

Overall, the gratitude and future-self groups did not reliably beat the activity-listing group¹¹. But students who had signed up for a study about becoming happier, and who did gratitude or future-self writing, gained more. That edge was still there six months later. Students whose writing showed more effort also gained more.

In plain terms, a gratitude practice you chose and put your heart into seems to work better than one you were handed.

Gratitude, sleep and long life: interesting links, not proof

In 2024, Harvard researchers reported on 49,275 women in the Nurses’ Health Study, a long-running study of female nurses¹². In 2016, when their average age was 79, they rated how grateful they felt. By 2019, 4,608 had died.

Women in the most grateful third were 9% less likely to die during follow-up than those in the least grateful third¹². The link was most notable for heart and blood vessel disease. The researchers adjusted for social and economic background, health history, lifestyle, religious involvement, optimism and other factors.

That’s a striking finding, but it comes from observing people, not from assigning them to practice gratitude. It’s possible that healthier, better-supported people simply feel more grateful. And the study included only older women.

Sleep shows a similar pattern. Beyond the 2003 study of people with neuromuscular disease³, a 2020 review found that gratitude exercises improved how well people felt they slept, across five groups of participants, according to a 2025 study that summarized it¹³.

That 2025 study surveyed 869 primary care patients in Germany¹³. More grateful patients reported less sleep trouble, but the link seemed to run mostly through lower anxiety and depression and more confidence about managing their health. It was a one-time survey, so it can’t show cause and effect.

The evidence at a glance

Claim	Evidence level	What the research shows
Gratitude practices lift mood and well-being	Strong evidence	Small but consistent effects across 145 papers and a 34-country experiment14
Expressing thanks to another person works better than private lists	Promising but early	Social practices ranked first in a report on the 2026 megastudy, but gaps were small; the gratitude visit had the biggest short-term effect in 2005129
Gratitude practices can replace treatment for depression or anxiety	Evidence says no	Effects on symptoms were small across 27 studies, and smaller against active comparison tasks; the authors advise better-proven treatments67
Gratitude lists improve sleep	Promising but early	Better self-rated sleep in a few small trials313
Gratitude lists increase exercise	Not enough evidence	Seen in one study, not repeated in the next3
Grateful people live longer	Not enough evidence	One large observational study of older women; cause unknown12
Counting blessings weekly beats doing it more often	Not enough evidence	One small six-week study11

A low-pressure gratitude menu

You don’t need a special journal or an app. Pick one practice, try it for a few weeks, and switch if it feels stale. This menu is built from the research above.

Practice	Suggested time	Best for	What to know
Send a short thank-you message	5 to 10 minutes	Feeling connected	Top-ranked in the 2026 megastudy, though all six practices scored close together12
Write and deliver a gratitude letter	An hour or two	A big, one-time lift	Biggest early boost in 2005; gone by three months9
Three good things	5 minutes at night	Lasting change	Benefits lasted six months when people kept going9
Weekly blessing count	10 minutes once a week	Avoiding burnout	Once a week beat three times a week in one study11
Prayer or a letter of thanks to God	Your choice	Spiritual life	One of six practices tested in the megastudy2

If you freeze up when you try to thank someone, use a simple pattern. You don’t need perfect words, since recipients tend to notice the warmth more than the wording¹⁰.

1. Name what the person did: “When you drove me to my appointments last spring…”
2. Say what it meant: “…I didn’t have to face that alone.”
3. Say how it still matters: “I think about it every time I pass that hospital.”
4. Stop there. Don’t apologize for writing, and don’t ask for anything.

Gratitude fits the values many natural-health readers already hold. It’s free. It needs no product, no prescription and no expert. It draws on old wisdom found in many faiths and cultures, and it builds the kind of connection that keeps people well. The research simply helps you set fair expectations: a small, real lift, not a cure.

Questions readers ask

The bottom line

Gratitude practices work, in a modest way. They give mood a small, reliable lift, and the strongest versions seem to involve another person: a message sent, a letter read aloud, a thank-you said out loud. The claims that gratitude can stand in for depression treatment, boosts exercise or lengthens life go beyond what the evidence shows.

Use gratitude as a gift to yourself and the people around you, not as a test you can fail. Keep it light, change it when it grows stale, and get real help when sadness or worry won’t lift.

Related reading

• Tai chi, prayer and journaling: what research can measure and what it can’t
• What meditation groups can do, and what they can stir up
• People come to wellness groups for answers and stay for belonging
• What a peer who’s been there can do that a clinician can’t
• How to tell psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists apart

Sources

1. Coles NA, Dang AV, Oishi S, et al. “A multinational megastudy of the effects of gratitude practices on subjective well-being.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2026 (abstract via Sabancı University repository). research.sabanciuniv.edu
2. Agência FAPESP. “Mega-study analyzes the impact of gratitude interventions.” FAPESP, August 5, 2026. agencia.fapesp.br
3. Emmons RA, McCullough ME. “Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003. greatergood.berkeley.edu
4. Choi H, Cha Y, McCullough ME, Coles NA, Oishi S. “A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of gratitude interventions on well-being across cultures.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 2025. doi.org
5. Huston GE, Law KH, Teague S, et al. “Understanding and optimising gratitude interventions: the right methods for the right people at the right time.” Psychology & Health, 2024. researchonline.jcu.edu.au
6. Cregg DR, Cheavens JS. “Gratitude Interventions: Effective Self-help? A Meta-analysis of the Impact on Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety.” Journal of Happiness Studies, 2021. link.springer.com
7. Ohio State News. “Gratitude interventions don’t help with depression, anxiety.” The Ohio State University, 2020 (republished November 2024). news.osu.edu
8. National Institute of Mental Health. “Depression.” NIH, last reviewed December 2024. nimh.nih.gov
9. Seligman MEP, Steen TA, Park N, Peterson C. “Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions.” American Psychologist, 2005 (authorized reprint). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
10. Association for Psychological Science. “People Underestimate the Power of Saying ‘Thanks'” (on Kumar A, Epley N, Psychological Science, 2018). APS Observer, July 13, 2018. psychologicalscience.org
11. Lyubomirsky S, Dickerhoof R, Boehm JK, Sheldon KM. “Becoming happier takes both a will and a proper way: An experimental longitudinal intervention to boost well-being.” Emotion, 2011. sonjalyubomirsky.com
12. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Experiencing gratitude associated with greater longevity among older adults.” July 3, 2024. hsph.harvard.edu
13. Altier HR, Hirsch JK, et al. “Gratitude and sleep disturbance in primary care patients: the mediating roles of health self-efficacy, health behaviors, and psychological distress.” Frontiers in Sleep, 2025. frontiersin.org