Research Says This Old-Timey Habit No One Does Anymore Is Good For Your Mental Health
When was the last time you sat down and wrote a thank you note?
cottonbro studio | Pexels Thank you notes have largely gone out of fashion. What was once considered proper etiquette is now a rarity, abandoned by most. But a new study found that writing for positive purposes, like creating thank-you notes, benefits your mental health.
Research found that writing thank-you notes is good for your mental health.
A study authored by Northumbria University’s Lauren Hoult and published in the journal PLOS One showed that writing for positive reasons is good for you. Reporting on the study for Talker, Stephen Beech noted, "Positive expressive writing consistently improves mental well-being, say scientists."
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If you’ve ever sat down and journaled about your emotions, you might have experienced this effect in a slightly different way. Hoult said that writing down how you feel about "stressful or negative topics" can improve your long-term mental health, though it often feels like a blow to your mindset at the moment.
"Positive expressive writing, on the other hand, emphasizes self-reflection, gratitude, and imagining a hopeful future, benefiting well-being over time without risk," Beech explained. This positive writing doesn't just include thank-you notes — it's anything that puts you in a positive frame of mind and keeps you from focusing on negative emotions that could bring you down.
To conduct the study, researchers analyzed 51 articles that dealt with the topic of "positive expressive writing interventions." The articles spanned an almost 100-year period, being written between 1930 and 2023. "The research team found that across positive expressive writing techniques, psychological and subjective well-being outcomes improved most consistently, including measures of happiness, life satisfaction, and gratitude," Beech noted.
Speaking about the study, Hoult said, "Our review shows that positive expressive writing techniques consistently benefit well-being and positive affect outcomes, with the strongest benefits observed for gratitude and best possible self-writing exercises."
Unfortunately, any kind of writing by hand, including thank-you notes, is no longer common.
While thank you notes were once considered a crucial step after receiving a gift or having kindness extended to you, they have become a lost art. Now, a verbal thanks or a quick text is considered enough when someone does something nice.
As for other forms of writing, the digital world has taken over. There is always an app for that, or a website, or a device. While paper is not likely to disappear completely, it is becoming obsolete in many ways. In fact, research shows that as much as 40% of Gen Z struggles with handwritten communication.
If you feel inclined to write a thank-you note, it will do more than just improve your mental health.
While we could all use some better mental wellness nowadays, that’s not the only benefit of writing thank-you notes. Thomas Farley, from Mister Manners, told HuffPost that thank you notes are "a sign of a gift recipient being truly eager to express gratitude in a format that is not ephemeral and shows a bit of additional effort on the sender’s part." That, he said, "stands out like never before."
If you truly want to impress someone who made the effort to give you a gift, sending a thank-you note will go a long way to convey your gratitude. You’ll also help keep the practice of putting pen to paper alive.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
