Express thanks online, get happier

With gratitude on everyone’s mind this week, a recently launched online study at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center makes it easy to, in one fell swoop, give thanks and contribute to a growing body of research on the subject.
The endeavor is based on the work of UC Davis psychology professor Bob Emmons, who has found that students who kept gratitude journals for a short period of time experienced strengthened resilience, became less vulnerable to daily stresses and suffered less from minor health complaints such as rashes and headaches.
Emmons teamed up with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley to launch a new website, Thnx4.org, earlier this month. The website functions as an interactive, shareable gratitude journal, as well as an online database for researchers who are studying gratitude. Entries made by participants are kept private (for research purposes only) unless participants elect to share them, either via an anonymous public feed or through their own social networks.
According to a statement released by the team behind Thnx4: “The project is part of a $5.6 million, three-year national effort called ‘Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude,’ funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Some $3.1 million of that money came to the Greater Good Science Center, which designed Thnx4.org with the twin goals of conducting research and educating people about the power of gratitude. The center also is dispensing research grant money to postdocs and graduate students nationwide.”

A screenshot from Thnx4.org. Source: Greater Good Science Center

The website launched earlier this month and already has met its initial goal of signing up more than 1,000 participants in November, said Jeremy Adam Smith, web editor for the science center.
Studies consistently show, noted Smith on Wednesday, that people who keep a gratitude journal are 25% happier than those who don’t. (See tips here for how to keep your journal.)
“Emmons says that gratitude works, in part, because you’re affirming that there are good things in life,” said Smith. “If you thank somebody, that’s affirming the relationship and strengthening social ties.”
As part of the study’s launch, the research team created the Cal Gratitude Challenge, asking participants affiliated with Cal to use the website to keep a two-week ‘gratitude journal’ during November and, if they choose, to share their posts with others. The Challenge takes 14 consecutive days for 5-10 minutes a day, and people without Cal connections are also welcome and invited to use the site. (Learn more here.)


source : berkeletside