Upward Spiral draws on research into wellbeing, including gratitude, relationships, meaning and mindfulness. Here’s the evidence behind our approach, and what it can and cannot tell us.
You might be managing the demands of life and still miss feeling connected, interested or purposeful. Or you might be going through a difficult time and find that a relationship or something you care about continues to matter deeply.
Research by Corey Keyes supports this fuller picture of mental health. Wellbeing and mental illness are connected, but measuring one does not tell us everything about the other. Positive functioning, connection and meaning deserve attention alongside symptoms and difficulties. [2]
Positive psychology investigates these aspects of human experience. Its subjects include gratitude, character strengths, positive emotions, relationships, meaning, goals, self-compassion and resilience. It also tests practices intended to develop them.
Inside Week 5
Living Toward What Matters.
One theme, explored in four ways: your values.
Learn
Explore the difference between a value and a goal. A goal might be finishing a course; a value might be continuing to learn.
Practise
Choose three to five values that matter to you. Notice where each appears in your life, then identify one small thing you could do that week to express it. Allow about fifteen to twenty minutes.
Develop mindfulness
The optional guided practice invites you to bring one value to mind and imagine an ordinary moment when you could act on it. Simply attending to your breathing is offered as an alternative.
Build coping skills
Create a short phrase that reminds you of a value during stress or indecision. You can use your own words and revise them as your circumstances change.
Then, reflect
Consider a recent decision and how it relates to your values. Across 52 weeks, the themes change while that familiar rhythm continues.
From idea to practice
How an idea becomes a practice we can test.
Take gratitude. Appreciating someone and writing them a letter are connected, but they are different things. Research helps us examine that connection.
01
The idea
Gratitude involves noticing and appreciating something valuable.
02
The practice
Writing a letter of appreciation turns that idea into a specific activity that researchers can study.
03
The evidence
In a randomized trial, people are assigned by chance to a practice or comparison group. Researchers measure what changes. A meta-analysis combines findings from several studies to estimate the overall pattern.
A theory can suggest something worth trying; testing tells us more about whether that particular practice helps.
Reading the evidence
What the research tells us.
The studies below offer reasons to consider wellbeing practices, with realistic expectations. Their findings describe averages across participants, rather than a result everyone can expect.
A broad research base
A meta-analysis of 347 studies involving over 72,000 participants found that positive psychology interventions improved wellbeing and reduced depressive symptoms. [1]
01 · Combining practices
Combining several practices
Hendriks and colleagues reviewed 50 randomized trials of programs combining positive psychology practices. They found wellbeing benefits, with smaller estimates after lower-quality studies were removed. [3]
A 2026 review examined wellbeing interventions in adults without diagnosed conditions. In that review, the benefit of combined positive psychology practices was no longer statistically clear after excluding studies at high risk of bias. [4]
These reviews examine different studies and populations. They offer a reason to explore the approach, while showing how study quality affects confidence in the benefits.
02 · Gratitude
Gratitude in everyday life
A 2025 meta-analysis involving 24,804 participants across 28 countries found a small average improvement in wellbeing from gratitude interventions. Results varied between countries and types of practice. [5]
03 · Alongside care
A practice alongside therapy
In a randomized trial of 293 adults seeking university-based psychotherapy, participants assigned gratitude writing alongside therapy reported better mental health four and twelve weeks after the writing ended than those receiving therapy alone or therapy with expressive writing. [6]
This offers a concrete example of a wellbeing practice complementing professional care.
04 · Mindfulness
Mindfulness has its own research base
A review of 45 randomized trials of mindfulness apps found small average reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms compared with control groups. These findings concern the apps studied, which differ in their content and delivery. [7]
