Gratitude practice or therapy session
A written gratitude practice or a talk-therapy session, logged as its own entry.
Recovery practices
Research records
Historical source snapshot. Not freshly verified, not a recommendation. Study findings, community accounts and app defaults are not interchangeable.
Publication suitability · 2026-10-15: Historical reference only; not a clinical verification. Clinical, regulatory, efficacy, safety and dose claims are not independently established by this review.
Gratitude practice or therapy session
A written gratitude practice or a talk-therapy session, logged as its own entry.
Evidence category: Clinical study. This describes the source category, not approval or certainty.
Regulatory statement in source: Not separately recorded; do not infer approval from the evidence category.
Three linked experiments randomly assigned adults to keep weekly or daily records focused on gratitude, hassles, or neutral life events. Participants in the gratitude condition consistently reported more positive affect and fewer physical symptoms than comparison groups, with a parallel benefit observed among people living with neuromuscular disease.
Benefits reported in the imported source
- Participants in the gratitude condition reported more positive affect than comparison groups across three linked studies.
- A parallel benefit appeared among people living with neuromuscular disease, extending the finding beyond a general population.
- Effects appeared with sessions as brief as a weekly written record.
Risks and limits
- Effects were not uniform across every outcome measured; some measures showed no significant difference between conditions.
- The original studies relied on self-report measures of affect and physical symptoms.
- Study durations were short, ranging from two to ten weeks, so long-term persistence of the effect is not established.
Source bottom line: Randomized comparisons found a gratitude-focused writing practice linked with higher positive affect than comparison conditions across three linked studies, most robustly on measures of positive affect.
Uncertainty: Reference information only. Not medical advice.
Study protocols — reports, not instructions
Undergraduate and community adults across two studies, plus a group of adults living with neuromuscular disease in a third study
- Reported regimen
- Weekly or daily written records focused on gratitude compared against records of hassles or neutral life events
- Duration
- Study periods ranging from two to ten weeks, published 2003
- Reported outcome
- The gratitude-focused groups showed higher positive affect and better self-reported physical health than comparison groups across the three studies
- Source
- Counting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life
Claim provenance
evidence.json#/catalog:recovery:gratitude-therapy/protocols/0
Community and practice descriptions
Accounts of a practice are not evidence of safety or effectiveness. Words such as “standard”, “safe” or “recommended” describe the source account, not verified consensus or this wiki’s advice. Commercial and self-published citations are retained for traceability, not vendor endorsement or independent clinical corroboration.
Unverified imported account — Three Good Things - Greater Good in Action
An imported authored paraphrase, not a quotation or a recommended protocol.
Review: unverified historical account. The imported wording is preserved for attribution; its full clinical, dosing, efficacy or consensus claims have not been independently established. Described practice context only; no clinical benefit or safety outcome is inferred.
Imported wording: In the Three Good Things writing practice, participants record three things that went well that day and explain why each happened, sometimes as a before-bed reflection.
Historical research outcome: verified-description · 2026-10-06
Rechecked the previously published description against live source content. The live Berkeley Three Good Things practice contains a written record of three good events and explanations of why they occurred. The source also discusses a before-bed reflection.
- https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/three-good-things: verified-description — The live Berkeley Three Good Things practice contains a written record of three good events and explanations of why they occurred. The source also discusses a before-bed reflection.
Pharmacokinetic context
No half-life recorded in this source snapshot. No value has been inferred.
Source references
Snapshot provenance
Source ID: catalog:recovery:gratitude-therapy. Commit: adc7684614f9439b41d91a3312b62e7982c7e20e. Review state: historical-not-reverified. Authored links are retained separately from the canonical evidence links in the public data. App templates/defaults and rejected drafts are archived, not deployed.
Related entries and components
None listed.