This Thanksgiving, More Than Any Other, Gratitude is Precious – but Warm Feelings Are Only the First Step To Living Well.

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On surveys, Canadians report feeling more stress and anxiety, but also more gratitude. We have made an art of it – literally – with the thank you signs for health care workers now fading in front windows. Gratitude is to be encouraged, according to countless self-help books and wellness blogs, like regular hand-washing and physical distancing. A regular dose, we are told, will help us sleep better, heal faster, feel more optimistic, make friends more easily, earn promotions more quickly – it’s the near-miracle cure for the anxiety and despair that ails us.

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“It’s hard to convince people something is worthwhile without potentially over-selling it,” said Jennifer Cheavens, a clinical psychologist at Ohio State University who co-authored a meta-analysis of 27 studies earlier this year that found gratitude interventions had only a modest effect when it came to reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety. “Sometime they just get a little bit ahead of the data.”

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