An attitude of gratitude

As a drug-addicted teenager, McKenzie Black didn't think she had much to be grateful for.

"I was really self-centred. I didn't care about anybody else. I ruined my physical health and my mental health. I did anything I had to do to get drugs. And that was it, that was my life," she said. "Drugs."

She started drinking alcohol at age 12 and first used drugs at age 13. She found herself in rehab at age 15, but didn't get clean until she discovered Narcotics Anonymous-- and gratitude journaling. As part of the program, she lists the things she's grateful for every night.

"One of the things I write on a regular basis is that I'm grateful for the ability to feel grateful," she said. "That's something I never had."

More and more, people such as Black are discovering that gratitude journaling can help them face challenges in their lives and stay focused on the positive. According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, expressing gratitude helps people become happier and more satisfied with what they have.

"When we express gratitude, we're essentially preventing ourselves from taking things for granted," she said. "When you're appreciating what you have, you're not adapting to it."

Today at age 20, Black is a student in the Child and Youth Worker program at George Brown College in Toronto. She credits gratitude journaling with her success in staying clean.

"When you first start to write that gratitude list and you're in a horrible place, it's like, 'I'm grateful for the couch.' It's so hard," she said. "But the more you do it, the more you think about the things that really mean something."

For Amy Langer, a wellness consultant at Centennial College, gratitude journaling is a way to help her focus on the positive. After spending too many nights lying awake worrying, Langer knew she had to make a change.

"What you think about comes true. If you think about the positive, that's what's going to happen. If you think about the negative, then you get stuck in a quagmire," she said. "Focusing on what I was grateful for in my life completely changed my perspective."

Langer started writing down five things each day she was grateful for. She says it was difficult to implement the habit at first, but in the end it has made her a happier person.

"Gradually, it infiltrates into every part of your life and helps you see things in a different manner," she said.

But according to Lyubomirsky, it's more important to write when you feel like it than to keep to a rigid schedule. In one of her studies, she discovered that people who wrote in a gratitude journal once a week were happier than those who wrote in it three times a week.

"For the ones who did it three times a week, it became kind of a chore or monotonous over time," she said. "On average, it seems that once a week is ideal, but it's up to the person."

Lyubomirsky warns that keeping a gratitude journal on a regular basis isn't for everyone-- despite her research, she doesn't keep one herself. But she says other forms of expressing gratitude, like talking with friends about what you're thankful for, can be just as effective. And whichever method you choose, being grateful for what you have can help you get through the hard times.

“When you’re going through something difficult, it can be helpful to be grateful for something that’s going well in your life,” Lyubomirsky said. “Maybe you’ve had some sort of trauma in your life, but your health is good. Or your family’s supportive. It helps you put things in perspective so you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

For Black, gratitude journaling has become an essential tool in her recovery from drug addiction—one she wouldn’t want to give up.

“When I’ve been obsessing about getting high, I’ll read an old gratitude list from a week ago or a month ago and realize that my life isn’t that bad,” she said. “I don’t want to get high and give up all of the things that I’m grateful for.”