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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

Welcome to all of our new subscribers. I wanted to announce that the Daily Concept recently passed the 1,000-subscriber threshold.

It has been truly gratifying to write and grow the Daily Concept over the last six months. I’m looking forward to sharing more interesting ideas and fun content with you all in the future.

Thank you for giving me your time and attention — it genuinely means the world to me to have brilliant people from around the world reading my work.

This brings us to today’s topic: gratitude journaling.

What is Gratitude Journaling?

Gratitude journaling is the practice of writing down things you are thankful or grateful for. It involves reflecting on the positive aspects of one's life and acknowledging the things that bring joy, fulfillment, or appreciation.

The process typically involves setting aside a few minutes each day or week to jot down specific things or moments that elicit feelings of gratitude.

These entries can range from significant events or achievements to simple pleasures, acts of kindness, or moments of beauty in everyday life.

Gratitude is Good: Research has shown that regularly practicing gratitude journaling can make us happier, reduce our stress, and improve our self-esteem.

Psychology professor Robert Emmons, a world-leading expert on the science of gratitude, claims that gratitude has two components:

• The first is an affirmation of goodness and the idea that people can recognize and appreciate the good things around them.

• The second part is the recognition that the source of the goodness comes from outside ourselves. Whether it be from other people, God, or the natural world, we need to acknowledge that our enjoyment of the good things in life is dependent on these things or people outside of ourselves — and that we should be thankful for these things.

Tell people how you feel about them: Another related practice is ‘gratitude letters,’ where people send letters (or emails, but letters are more personal) to other people telling them how much their relationship or friendship means to them.

Sending gratitude letters to people we care about has been linked to stronger and healthier romantic relationships and friendships.

Sharing feelings of gratitude with the people who are close to us has remarkable benefits. People who do so report greater life satisfaction, fewer depressive symptoms, and closer relationships.

Researchers at the Greater Good Science Center at U.C. Berkeley have said that gratitude is the “social glue” that helps us build trust and maintain healthy and loving relationships with other people.

LEARN MORE:

Check out this research paper published by the Greater Good Science Center on the Science of Gratitude.

It provides a comprehensive overview of the scientific literature on gratitude and an accessible discussion of how focusing on gratitude can improve our lives.

More from the Daily Concept: On the topic of gratitude letters, we might often feel uncomfortable with telling people how much we care about them — possibly because we feel it’s a weird thing to say, or because we are (irrationally) worried that they don’t feel the same way about us.

I explored the idea that people like us more than we think they do in my recent newsletter on the “liking gap.” 

Check out the Daily Concept newsletter on the liking gap (link here) or the video I made for our Instagram account to learn more:

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View more on Instagram

Please reply to this email with some things you’re grateful for. I’ll include these “gratitude notes” in Friday’s newsletter.

ART OF THE DAY

Thank you for reading. Please reply to this email if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Yours,
Dan