--- title: Why You Should Write More Thank You Notes description: A new study says sending gratitude letters and thank-you notes may have unexpected benefits for recipients and senders. canonical: https://time.com/5383208/thank-you-notes-gratitude/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-08-31T15:39:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:18:18.162Z article:section: Health og:title: Why You Should Write More Thank You Notes og:description: It's good for you and the recipient og:url: https://time.com/5383208/thank-you-notes-gratitude/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1d6fba5a36b1603e/698878c0bc6cfc6fcb3db33d/pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2500 og:image:height: 1406 og:image:alt: pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas-motto-stock og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why You Should Write More Thank You Notes twitter:description: It's good for you and the recipient twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1d6fba5a36b1603e/698878c0bc6cfc6fcb3db33d/pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why You Should Write More Thank You Notes > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 31, 2018 3:39 PM UTC  Molly Cranna for TIME  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 31, 2018 3:39 PM UTC Research has shown time and time again that [being grateful is good for your health](http://time.com/5026174/health-benefits-of-gratitude/), mood and general well-being. In fact, it’s one of the easiest things you can do to [increase your mental health](http://time.com/4801218/when-to-take-mental-health-day/). But if you can’t remember the last time you sent a real thank-you note, a recent study may explain why. [The research](https://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ac143-kumarepley28inpress29undervaluinggratitudepsychscience.pdf), published recently in _Psychological Science_, says people chronically underestimate the power of expressing gratitude and overestimate how awkward it will be, which may keep them from engaging in the simple but impactful practice. “Saying thanks can improve somebody’s own happiness, and it can improve the well-being of another person as well — even more than we anticipate, in fact,” says study co-author Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. “If both parties are benefitting from this, I think that’s the type of action we should be pursuing more often in our everyday lives.” Kumar’s research involved a series of experiments. Each one differed slightly, but the general concept remained the same: People were asked to send a letter to someone in their life, expressing gratitude. Before sending the letters, the writers were asked about how they expected the recipient to react. Then, the researchers polled the recipients about their actual reactions. They found that writers consistently misjudged how their letters would land, overestimating awkwardness and underestimating the recipients’ reported mood and surprise at receiving the note. Kumar says that imbalance points to different priorities and concerns from writers and recipients. “\[Writers\] think about things like, ‘Am I going to get the words just right and am I going to be articulate?’ That might be a barrier to actually sitting down and writing the thing,” he says. “But when you’re the recipient of something like a gratitude letter, you tend to evaluate things on the basis of warmth and prosocial intent. As long as somebody’s expression is sincere and warm and friendly, recipients are often going to have a very positive reaction to that.” (For what it’s worth, the study also found that recipients tended to view the letters as warmer and more articulate than the writers thought they would.) The researchers also surveyed writers before and after they composed their notes, and found that writing the gratitude letters consistently put them in more positive spirits — a finding in keeping with plenty of existing research on the [mood-enhancing effects of gratitude](http://time.com/3619045/gratitude-health/). The new study didn’t look at whether other forms of expressing gratitude — like sending a quick text message, or thanking someone in person — would have different effects. But Kumar says the broader takeaway is that we shouldn’t let our own self-consciousness stand in the way of giving genuine thanks. To make it easier to follow through, he suggests keeping cards on hand, so you can compose a note whenever the mood strikes. “Writing gratitude letters seems to come at little or no real cost. People were composing these really thoughtful messages in just a matter of minutes,” Kumar says. “The broader message is that people should express gratitude more often, and precisely how you go about doing that might not matter that much.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5383208/thank-you-notes-gratitude/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5383208/thank-you-notes-gratitude/"},"headline":"Why You Should Write More Thank You Notes","datePublished":"2018-08-31T15:39:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:18:18.162Z","description":"It's good for you and the recipient","url":"https://time.com/5383208/thank-you-notes-gratitude/","keywords":["Mental Health/Psychology","onetime","healthytime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1d6fba5a36b1603e/698878c0bc6cfc6fcb3db33d/pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1d6fba5a36b1603e/698878c0bc6cfc6fcb3db33d/pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas-motto-stock","caption":"pen-notepad-2-advice-success-work-to-do-ideas-motto-stock","creditText":"Molly Cranna for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/mental-healthpsychology/","name":"Mental Health/Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5383208/thank-you-notes-gratitude/","name":"Why You Should Write More Thank You Notes"}}]}] ```