Start a ​‘​Good Things​’​ Journal

Quick Win

Paying attention to the positive may ease stress. How to start? Create a “three good things” practice​​​​! 

Try This Today 

• Focus on the positive. In a notebook or journal ​—​ or your planner ​—​ write down three good things that happened today. (If it’s early and not much has happened yet, circle back in the afternoon or evening.) 
• Be specific. Instead of “I took a hike with my sister,” capture the details: “On a hike, my sister and I saw a great blue heron and reminisced about our favorite family vacation.” As you’re writing, relive the positive emotions you felt.  
• Make it a habit. Choose a dedicated place to keep your journal, and decide on a time of day to write in it. Plan to do a weekly review to revisit all 21 good things that happened. 

Why

Homing in on threats helped early humans survive. That may explain our tendency to focus on what’s going wrong — what research psychologists call “the negativity bias.” But recording happy experiences may help you foster a sense of gratitude and a positive outlook. Cultivating gratitude was linked to improvements in perceived stress and depression in a review of nine studies published in 2021 in the Journal of Occupational Health. And optimism was linked to numerous mental and physical health benefits, including resilience to stress, in a research overview published in 2010 in Clinical Practice & Epidemiology in Mental Health.