Gratitude and sleep: what the evidence says

The study everyone cites

In 2009 Wood, Joseph, Lloyd and Atkins surveyed 401 adults about gratitude, personality and sleep. About 40 percent of them had scores indicating clinically impaired sleep. People who were more grateful as a trait reported better sleep quality, longer sleep, falling asleep faster and less tiredness during the day.

The interesting part is the mechanism. The link between gratitude and sleep ran through pre-sleep thoughts: grateful people had more pleasant and fewer worrying thoughts as they were falling asleep. The results held after accounting for the Big Five personality traits, including neuroticism.

The limit is just as important. This was a single questionnaire at one point in time. It shows that grateful people tend to sleep better, not that becoming more grateful will improve your sleep. Those are different claims, and the second needs trials.

What the trials show

Several small trials have tested gratitude exercises directly. Nancy Digdon and Amy Koble (2011) gave 41 university students with racing thoughts at night one of three self-help exercises for a week: constructive worry, imagery distraction or a gratitude list. All three reduced pre-sleep worry and arousal and improved sleep compared with the baseline week, and none did better than the others. That is encouraging, but it also suggests gratitude may be one good way to quiet the mind rather than a special one.

Marta Jackowska and colleagues (2016) randomly assigned 119 young women to two weeks of gratitude journaling, a neutral diary of everyday events, or nothing. The gratitude group reported higher wellbeing and better sleep quality.

In 2020 Boggiss and colleagues systematically reviewed gratitude trials that measured physical health outcomes. Subjective sleep quality improved in five of the eight studies that measured it, which made sleep one of the more promising outcomes. They also noted that most studies had some risk of bias and concluded that more research is needed before firm conclusions.

How big is the effect?

Honestly: small to modest, measured mostly by self-report, in mostly healthy and often young samples. Nobody has shown that a gratitude list fixes insomnia, and the studies are short. If you sleep badly most nights, a gratitude habit is a pleasant thing to add, not a substitute for proper help.

One more study is worth knowing, because it complicates the picture. Michael Scullin and colleagues (2018) had 57 young adults write for five minutes before bed in a sleep lab: either a to-do list for the coming days or a list of tasks they had already completed. The to-do group fell asleep faster. It was not a gratitude study, but it hints that what helps at lights out may be offloading tomorrow's worries rather than reviewing today.

How to use gratitude at bedtime

Putting the findings together, a sensible bedtime routine looks like this:

• Do your three good things in the evening, before you are in bed if you can. The aim is to change what you are thinking about as you settle, not to do homework under the covers.
• Keep them small and concrete. A specific pleasant memory is easier to replay than an abstract blessing.
• If tomorrow is crowding your head, write a short to-do list too. Get it out, then let it be.
• Do not grade yourself. A night of poor sleep after your list does not mean it failed. These are effects you notice over weeks.
• Keep the screen time short. Say or type your three and put the phone down.

When it is not the right tool

Some nights the thing keeping you awake is too big for a list of good things: grief, a crisis at home, a worry that needs action. Forcing gratitude on those nights can feel hollow and even make you feel worse for not feeling it. On those evenings, write the worry down with one next step, and let gratitude wait until tomorrow. Our guide on gratitude and anxiety goes into what gratitude can and cannot do for a busy mind.

And if poor sleep has lasted weeks, or you snore heavily, wake gasping or feel exhausted every day, that deserves a conversation with a doctor rather than a new habit.

Why speaking might suit the evening

At the end of the day, the friction of opening a notebook or typing on a small keyboard is often what ends a habit. Saying three things out loud takes under a minute and needs no light. Gratitude lets you say your three, keeps them as words on the phone, and lets you get on with going to sleep. Everything free works with no account; you can see it on the home page.

If you want a fuller wind-down, our evening reflection routine puts the pieces together.