This is episode 2,152 of the Daily Meditation Podcast.

I'm Mary Meckley and I welcome you to a brand new series we're launching into this week.

This is day one of a series on gratitude.

But it's not the typical kind of gratitude. But it's not the typical kind of gratitude you may experience. This is the kind of

gratitude that's actually going to improve your mental health. Many studies on gratitude have shown that it's one of the best

ways to feel happier and more joyful. Most of these studies have been done on people who are already

pretty happy, pretty peaceful people.

But I came across some research that shows that people who struggle

in particular with depression and sadness and anxiety

can improve their mental health significantly by focusing on one factor,

gratitude. This is from an article by Greater Brown and Joel Wong.

So this study was conducted on a group of students, again 300 of them, who were at a university who were seeking mental health

counseling at the university.

And they recruited these participants just before. and they found that the majority of

these participants just before they began their first session of

counseling. They found that the majority of people who were seeking counseling at this university

struggled with issues of depression and anxiety.

So they randomly assigned them to three groups.

All three groups received counseling services.

The first group was also instructed to write one letter of gratitude to another person each week for three weeks.

The second group was instructed to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about

negative experiences. The third group wasn't required to do any writing activity.

...