The idea of a gratitude journal is to train your happiness muscle. Instead of focusing on negative things, it helps you to focus on the positive aspects of life. In this way, after writing more often in your journal, you reacquaint yourself on how to have an eye for and focus on the good things that life has to offer. This can help, even if you are facing a lot of adversity.

Research has shown that people who practice gratitude on a regular basis, even for a short while, have several benefits. It has been shown to increase positivity, improve self-esteem, help you sleep better, make you happier and reduce stress. It has even been shown to increase social connectedness and meaning and, in turn, wellbeing.

Starting your journal

Try to think about the many things in your life, both large and small, that you are grateful for. These might include supportive relationships, sacrifices or contributions that others have made for you, facts about your life such as your advantages and opportunities, or even gratitude for life itself and the world we live in. In all these cases, you are identifying previously unappreciated aspects of your life, for which you can be thankful. You may not have thought about yourself in this way before, but research suggests that doing so can have a strong positive effect on your mood and satisfaction of life.

Exercise 1: Write your journal

Now, write about the many things in your life, both large and small, that you have been grateful for in the past week.

That’s it! Try to repeat this process for yourself on a regular basis (e.g., once a week). It might take some practice, but, by making this a habit, you will learn how to identify previously unappreciated aspects of your life. You may quickly start to feel the positive effects of writing a gratitude journal. Actively keeping a gratitude journal also helps you to reflect and look back on the positive things in your life that might have previously gone unnoticed.