Jacob, a Social Work student on placement with BetterU, kicks off 2026 student content with this great piece on gratitude journalling. I’m stoked to have student authors again on BetterU! Gratitude journalling is evidence-based, can be started super simply, and can help you shift your perspective in a way that buffers a tendency we have to get lost in the negative.
I am sure you have heard the buzzword “gratitude” around the place. Or you have at least been told by the self-help brigade to be “grateful” for the food on your table or the roof over your head. A smug grin may even spread across their face, as if pointing out the obvious is a miracle cure for a heavy study load.
Often, we meet these truisms of gratefulness with rolled eyes (I know I did), especially when well-meaning relatives use them to explain why you’re stuck with a faded second-hand 2008 Hyundai Getz instead of buying you a brand-new car for your birthday. But there is a big difference between receiving a hollow cliché and using gratitude journaling as a tactic to redirect your own mental energy.
As students, Uni takes up a lot of our time and energy, and it can be hard to step back from it all and reel in the stress halfway through a big assignment or in the middle of exam prep. I personally find myself in tunnel vision, holding on to my academic success too tightly and taking on too much Uni pressure. When you find yourself deep in the weeds, as I’ve been, the last thing you want is a lecture on ‘keeping positive’; you want an effective tool that actually gets you back on track.
Gratitude journaling is my pick for one such tool: the act of writing down people and things in life that you are grateful for. I have found it to be an invaluable tool for reframing the situation in front of me and finding a calmer focus, but I understand the scepticism about how such a low-stakes habit could actually rewire the brain’s response to stress.
On the surface, gratitude journaling may seem like a cheap mind hack that ignores your life pressures and simply tricks you into feeling happier. However, a 2024 study focusing on Uni students found that those who kept a gratitude journal experienced a measurable lift in well-being and academic performance.
This study points to something called the ‘Broaden-and-build’ theory. The basic idea is that positive emotions broaden our perspective, enabling us to step back from a single stressful event and see more of the bigger picture. Gratitude journaling taps into this same process, gently nudging our attention to what is going right in our lives. What’s amazing is that these benefits were still present five months after they had stopped the habit!
Full disclosure: The students in this study engaged in an intensive 10-session program that went deeper than a daily gratitude journal; the results set the ‘gold standard’ for what is possible. Think of it like the ‘couch to 5k’ for gratitude journaling. Just as you wouldn’t run a marathon on your first day of training, you wouldn’t write a big 500-word gratitude letter to a mentor as a start.
Instead, we are starting with a simple 3×3 method and by building this foundational habit, we are working toward the same outcome the researchers observed: a mindset that deliberately redirects attention away from life stressors and towards sources of meaning.
So how can we start reclaiming our attention?
Well, what makes this habit so effective is the relative ease of getting started:
🧠 Create a dedicated space: Find a journal or notebook and pick a quiet spot at home dedicated to writing, somewhere you can’t ignore it, like a desk or the kitchen counter.
🧠 Follow the 3 x 3 rule: 3 times each week, write down 3 (or more!) things you are grateful for in life. I like to start with the basics (like a sunny day or a delicious breakfast) and move outward to the people and groups that support me.
🧠 Stick with it: Repeatedly training our attention to step back from stress and recognise gratitude builds that resilience we’re looking for.
🧠 Couch to 5k: Once this practice becomes second nature, we can make this into a daily habit. Then, once you’re ready, we can add more complexity that the researchers asked of the students, such as:
➡️ Finding the ‘Why’ of your gratitude entry, like looking at the cause and meaning present in your moment of gratitude.
➡️ Focusing on interpersonal gratitude, such as the good qualities of your friends and family.
➡️ Attempting the no-repeat challenge by looking for new gratitude points each time you go back to your journal.
Looking for a deeper dive into this topic, or still a little sceptical?
This video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell is an incredible 10-minute animated video that gives a great breakdown on how this habit actually rewires your brain.
Want to commit to a one-week Gratitude challenge? This year Success Week features a Helpful Habit Hacks Challenge where students choose one of three challenges (wellbeing, movement, or study) and commit to a small daily habit. Sign up and choose the wellbeing Gratitude Journal challenge. I’ll be there! Sign up via the FLO site by Sunday 22 March to participate in the full challenge and go into the draw for daily and total prizes. Sign up here.
I bet we have all heard the self-help brigade’s gratitude pitch a hundred times by now, but honestly, jotting down a few things you appreciate is less about forced positivity and more about reclaiming your headspace, so the stress of the semester doesn’t get the final say.
Reference list
Giannopoulos, G., & Fragkiadaki, E. (2024). Effectiveness of a gratitude journal intervention on well-being and academic achievement. Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science, 6(1), 1-24. https://journals.kmanpub.com/index.php/jayps/article/view/3855/6468
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell. (2019, November 24). An antidote to dissatisfaction [Video]. YouTube.
Images generated with Gemini.