way of approaching life; this suggests that individual differences in gratitude include all of these components. Empirical findings Association with well-being Gratitude is foundational to well-being and mental health. Evidence has shown that there are psychological and physical benefits associated with gratitude. It has been shown to contribute to not only positive affect and other life outcomes, but also to a decrease in negative affect. A large body of work in the early 21st century has suggested that people who are more grateful have higher levels of subjective well-being. Grateful people are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships. They are found to be more joyful in the long term. Specifically, in terms of depression, gratitude may serve as a buffer by enhancing the coding and retrievability of positive experiences. Grateful people also have higher levels of control over their environments, personal growth, purpose in life, self-acceptance, as well as more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life. They are more likely to seek support from other people, reinterpret and grow from experiences, and they spend more time planning how to deal with problems. Likewise, grateful people have fewer negative coping strategies. They are less likely to try to avoid problems, deny there is a problem, blame themselves, or cope through substance use. Such people also sleep better because they think more positive thoughts just before going to sleep. They also tend to have better relationships because a person's gratitude can protect the relationship satisfaction of their partner. Overall, numerous studies suggest that grateful people are more likely to have higher levels of happiness and lower levels of stress and depression. Although many emotions and personality traits are important to the well-being and mental health, there is evidence that gratitude may be uniquely important. First, a longitudinal study showed that people who were more grateful coped better with a life transition. Specifically, people who were more grateful before the transition were less stressed, less depressed, and more satisfied with their relationships three months later. Second, two recent studies have suggested that gratitude may have a unique relationship with well-being and can explain aspects of well-being that other personality traits cannot. Both studies showed that gratitude was able to explain more well-being than the Big Five and 30 of the most commonly studied personality traits. Gratitude has also been shown