A new Durham University study suggests that practising gratitude may help people adopt a broader range of healthier habits, from eating well and staying active to getting enough sleep and managing stress.
The research was carried out by the university’s Department of Psychology and published in the British Journal of Health Psychology. Its findings indicate that the relationship between gratitude and health may extend beyond one individual behaviour and apply to people from a range of backgrounds.
What the Durham research found
Researchers analysed evidence from 24 separate studies involving 6,967 people. The participants included university students, adults from the wider community and people living with long-term health conditions.
Those conditions included fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and cancer. The data was collected over nine years as part of a wider research programme examining the relationship between gratitude and health.
Earlier research had connected gratitude with individual health behaviours, such as healthy eating or following medical advice. The new study found that the association reaches across several behaviours, rather than being limited to one area of health.
The researchers said gratitude may encourage people to focus more on positive emotions and future outcomes. That could help them make choices that support their health and wellbeing, although the study describes a relationship between gratitude and healthier behaviour rather than proving that gratitude directly causes those choices.
How gratitude could be used
Lead author Professor Fuschia Sirois said gratitude could offer a straightforward way to support healthier behaviour. Possible approaches include keeping a gratitude journal or writing gratitude lists.
“Cultivating gratitude via gratitude journals or lists could therefore be a low resource approach for facilitating uptake of key health-promoting behaviours.”
Professor Sirois also said gratitude interventions could provide an alternative, strengths-based way to support healthier choices among people with health conditions, students and the wider population.
The British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology said the findings highlighted the potential for gratitude interventions to contribute to a preventative approach to health.
What happens next
The researchers hope the findings will prompt further research into how gratitude-based approaches could help people develop healthier behaviours. The study therefore points to gratitude as a possible low-resource tool for supporting health, while leaving further work needed to understand how such approaches might be used and how effective they are for different groups.
The research is part of the work of Durham University’s Department of Psychology. The university says the department is ranked 70th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 and tenth in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2027.
Readers can learn more about Professor Fuschia Sirois’s work, read the full paper and news story published by the British Psychological Society, or explore Durham University’s undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programmes.