The Facebook Effect Research Study - amazonia.fiocruz.br

With the rise of managed health care, which emphasizes cost-efficiency and brevity, mental health professionals The Facebook Effect Research Study had to confront this burning question: How can they help clients derive the greatest possible benefit from treatment in the shortest amount of time? Recent evidence suggests that a promising approach is to complement psychological counseling with additional activities that are not too taxing for clients but yield high results. In our own research, we have zeroed in on one such activity: the practice of gratitude. Indeed, many studies over the past decade have found that people who consciously count their blessings tend to be happier and less depressed.

The problem is that most research studies on gratitude have been conducted with well-functioning people. Is gratitude beneficial for people who struggle with mental health concerns?

And, if so, how? We set out to address these questions in a recent research study involving nearly adults, mostly college students who were seeking mental health counseling at a university.

Background

We recruited these participants just before they began their first session of counseling, and, on average, they reported clinically low levels of mental health at the time. The majority of people seeking counseling services at this university in general struggled with issues related to depression and anxiety.

We randomly assigned our study participants into three groups. Although all three groups received counseling services, the first group was also instructed to write one letter of gratitude to another person each week for three weeks, whereas the second group was asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings here negative experiences. The third group did not do Effet writing activity. What did we find? Compared with the participants who wrote about negative experiences or only received counseling, those who wrote gratitude letters reported significantly better mental health four weeks and 12 weeks after their writing exercise ended.

This suggests that gratitude writing can be beneficial not just for healthy, well-adjusted individuals, but also for those who struggle with mental health concerns. In fact, it seems, FFacebook gratitude on top of receiving psychological counseling carries greater benefits than counseling alone, even when that gratitude practice is brief.

How Much Do We Know?

When we dug deeper into our results, we found indications of how gratitude might actually work on our minds and bodies. First, by analyzing the words used by participants in each of the two writing groups, we were able to understand the mechanisms behind the mental health benefits of gratitude letter writing. What if we didn't take good things for granted? Learn how gratitude can lead to a better life—and a better world—in this new GGSC book.

It was only when people used fewer negative emotion words in their letters that they were significantly more likely to report better mental health. In fact, it was the lack of negative emotion words—not the abundance of positive words—that explained the mental health gap between the gratitude writing group and the other writing group. When you write about how grateful you are to others and how much other people have blessed your life, it The Facebook Effect Research Study become considerably harder for you to ruminate Inorganic Chemistry Organic Acids Vs your negative The Facebook Effect Research Study. Read a special white paper on the science of gratitude —explaining where it comes from, what its benefits are, and how to cultivate it.

Discover the six habits of highly grateful people. Learn what stops gratitude. Find out how gratitude can help you through hard times. How grateful are you? Take our gratitude quiz and try these gratitude practices! In fact, only 23 percent of participants who wrote gratitude letters sent them. This suggests that the mental health benefits of writing gratitude letters are not entirely dependent on actually communicating that gratitude to another person. But the mere act of writing the letter can help you appreciate the people in your life and shift your focus away from negative feelings and thoughts.

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Although the different groups in our study did not differ in mental health levels one week after the end of the writing activities, individuals in the gratitude group reported better mental health than the others four weeks after the writing activities, and this difference in mental health became even larger 12 weeks after the writing activities. These results are encouraging because many other studies suggest that the mental health benefits of positive activities often decrease rather than increase over time afterward. Perhaps the gratitude letter writers discussed what they wrote in their letters with their counselors or with others.]