The Science of Gratitude: How a Simple Journal Can Rewire Your Brain. I Faced Death at 27. Here's What I Learned About Gratitude.

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My story: a mind that leans toward darkness

I should be honest with you. I have always had a depressive temperament. It is part of who I am — from my school years until today, at thirty, there have been times when thoughts of not wanting to exist visit me, when I suddenly sink so low that I cry for days, when I simply cannot find any energy. Through my teens and twenties I struggled deeply: with heavy, persistent gloom, with an eating disorder, with the painful feeling of not matching my own identity. Then I met my partner, and little by little, I started making conscious, positive choices to work through what was inside me.

Still, even accounting for temperament, I often wonder: hasn't my own brain trained itself into bad habits? Even now, I catch myself replaying old wounds, resenting my circumstances, hunting for everything that is wrong — with my life, with my environment, with myself — while completely ignoring everything I am blessed with. And then I feel miserable, and convince myself that I am unhappy.

The winter that changed everything

The winter I was twenty-seven, the day after I went out to buy Christmas presents for my in-laws — December 16th, my own mother's birthday, a date I will never forget — I came down with a sudden high fever and a cough that would not stop.

At first I assumed it was the seasonal flu. The doctor gave me paracetamol; I drank water, took the medicine, stayed in bed, and waited to recover. But day by day, it got worse. Lying flat on my back, I could no longer breathe without coughing. I couldn't swallow any food. A second visit ended with antibiotics for a possible bacterial infection. A few days later, exhausted, I went back a third time, hoping it would finally be resolved — and this time they took an X-ray. It wasn't a cold. It was pneumonia.

I took pneumonia antibiotics for three days. Nothing changed. The day after Christmas — ten days after the first symptoms — at my fourth visit, the doctors found that my lungs were so saturated that I was at risk of not being able to breathe at all. My life was in danger. I was taken to hospital by ambulance.

In hospital, they gave me four different antibiotics. Two days passed with no response. What frightened me most was hearing the doctors say they could not yet identify the pathogen — that nothing was certain until the lab results came back. So if it turns out to be something they cannot name, will I simply die without ever knowing why? That is genuinely how it felt.

Then, on the third or fourth day, the results came: mycoplasma. A name I had heard since childhood — which meant it was treatable. I have rarely felt such relief. I stayed in hospital through the New Year and was finally discharged in mid-January, ten kilograms lighter, but alive.

And I was carried through all of it: the nurses, the cleaning lady who chatted with me every morning, the French doctors who poured everything into treating me free of charge, my partner who came to the hospital every single evening after work, my family in Japan and in France supporting me from afar.

I had never in my life felt so much gratitude toward so many people. And I had never felt death so close, so real. Lying in that hospital bed, for the first time, I thought with my whole being: I want to live. And the years I had spent rejecting myself, wishing I could disappear, suddenly looked so different to me.

So if you are hurting, anxious, wishing you could vanish — I understand that feeling more than you know. But perhaps, just perhaps, the worries that feel enormous today would look smaller if you ever stood face to face with death. Perhaps you are more blessed than you realize: three meals a day, family or friends, a body that carries you to work or school each morning. These small, "obvious" things are so easy to overlook — and they are, in truth, precious beyond measure. I forget it too. Most of us do.

And if the feeling of wanting to disappear is with you right now, please don't carry it alone. In the UK, you can call the Samaritans at 116 123 (free, 24/7); in the US, call or text 988. Reaching out is an act of strength.

That hospital bed made me reconsider the unhappiness I had carried for so long — and it made me curious: could this feeling actually be improved, from the perspective of brain science? That is how I discovered the gratitude journal.

What science says: 4 proven effects of gratitude

1. Grateful people are measurably happier. In a landmark study, psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough asked participants to write down a few things they were grateful for each week. After ten weeks, they were more optimistic, felt better about their lives, and even reported fewer physical complaints than those who wrote about daily hassles.

2. Gratitude eases depressive symptoms — durably. Martin Seligman's well-known "Three Good Things" exercise — writing down three things that went well each day, for just one week — increased happiness and reduced depressive symptoms, with effects still measurable six months later.

3. Gratitude improves sleep. Research by Alex Wood and colleagues (2009) showed that grateful people fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly, because gratitude quiets the anxious, repetitive thoughts that tend to keep us awake at night.

4. Gratitude literally retrains the brain. A 2016 brain-imaging study (Kini et al.) found that even a short gratitude writing practice produced lasting changes in the medial prefrontal cortex — a region tied to decision-making and emotion — measurable weeks later. Gratitude is not just a feeling; it is a trainable skill.

A gentle word for those who struggle more than others

Of course, unhappiness is not the same for everyone. Some of us — like me — have brains that lean naturally toward the negative, and for us, feeling happiness or joy in being alive genuinely takes more effort than it does for others. That is real, and it is not your fault.

But if, like me, you want to ease that weight even a little — not to erase it completely, which may not always be possible, but to turn your eyes, slowly and gently, toward what is good and rich in your life — then I recommend gratitude with all my heart.

We can never truly know a feeling until we live it. So some of you may read my story and not relate at all — and that is perfectly fine. You have your own way of seeing and feeling, as you should. I am only offering my path as one example. For me, perhaps it took facing death to understand, deeply and truly, how much I had to be grateful for. (You do not need to go that far. Truly.)

Start small. Start today.

Every day, just a little. I ate today. We laughed together. My family is alive. I can breathe. I can walk. I have a place to live.

We all carry worries — money, work, appearance, the endless feeling of not enough. Gratitude and affirmation do not erase those worries. What they do is open our eyes to the real abundance we already hold.

So even if it feels clumsy at first — if you care about your mental wellbeing, please try it. Journaling is one of the very best ways to practice gratitude, because it turns the feeling into written words. Whether in the 1% Better Diary or a plain paper notebook, write a few lines every day.

I believe the small gratitudes you gather, day after day, will quietly become the rich, fertile, unshakable foundation of a better life.