Why Gratitude Isn’t a Once-A-Year Affair

What This Means For Teachers, Parents and Everyday Connections Wanting To Build Emotional Intelligence.

We all recognise occasions such as World Teachers’ Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Most, if not all, appreciation days are created with good intentions. That is to shine a spotlight on people who shape our lives, to make invisible work visible and to remind us to pause and say thank you. These days matter. They generate attention and emotion, they bring people together and they help communities acknowledge effort and care. When gratitude is limited to a single date, however, we lose the very essence of what makes it powerful. Just like exercising once a year will not build a healthy body, expressing thanks on one day will not build a culture of appreciation. Gratitude, like strength, grows through consistency.

Gratitude does not need a calendar date. It lives in the small, genuine gestures we exchange every day.

The concept of gratitude has deep psychological roots. It is more than politeness or positive thinking. Gratitude is a relational emotion that connects people through recognition, empathy and shared meaning. Neuroscientific studies show that gratitude activates areas of the brain associated with moral cognition and reward processing, particularly the medial prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotion and decision-making (Kini et al., 2016). Regular gratitude is not just a social nicety; it strengthens neural pathways linked to wellbeing and emotional regulation. Gratitude reminds the brain that safety and connection are present, which helps calm the body’s stress response and build resilience over time.

What the Research Reveals About Gratitude

A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis of 64 randomised controlled trials found that gratitude interventions improved life satisfaction and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression compared with control groups (Lima et al., 2023). A meta-analysis by Wood and colleagues (2024), covering 145 studies across 28 countries, found consistent improvements in wellbeing even when effect sizes were modest. The findings are remarkably steady. Gratitude works best when practised regularly and the benefits fade when it is treated as a one-off exercise. Gratitude also strengthens social bonds. A 2021 study by Łoś and Piłat found that keeping a gratitude journal improved participants’ sense of purpose, reduced stress and improved sleep quality (Łoś & Piłat, 2021). Gratitude is, in essence, a relational investment. Like compound interest, it grows with repetition.

Neuroscience shows that gratitude activates brain regions linked to empathy, reward and emotional regulation, helping us feel calmer and more connected.

How gratitude strengthens emotional intelligence

In the context of emotional intelligence, gratitude strengthens every major component. It builds self-awareness by encouraging reflection on how others contribute to our lives. It enhances empathy by directing attention to the intentions and feelings of others. It sharpens relational communication because expressing gratitude requires us to name, not just feel, appreciation. It also improves self-regulation by helping us shift focus from frustration or scarcity to connection and sufficiency. In schools and workplaces, these capacities translate to greater trust, collaboration and emotional safety. Gratitude is, in many ways, the practice that holds emotional intelligence together.

The problem with appreciation days is not that they exist. The issue is that they too easily become the only moment of acknowledgement. When the spotlight fades, so too can the feeling of being valued. For teachers, that is particularly important. Each October, World Teachers’ Day floods social media with posts of thanks and quotes about impact. Within weeks, many teachers return to feeling overworked, under-recognised and emotionally drained. No amount of hashtags can offset a culture where gratitude is episodic. A banner and a morning tea might feel warm for a day, yet they rarely reach deep enough to change how a teacher feels on a difficult Thursday afternoon in term four.

Appreciation days have their place. They create social visibility and community connection. They can act as a cue, a prompt that brings gratitude to awareness. In behavioural science, cues are vital for habit formation. When used well, these days can spark a deeper practice. On their own, they do not create habits; they create moments. However, we all know moments fade quickly. Research on behavioural change shows that repeated, small actions, known as low-friction habits, are what embed new neural and social patterns (Łoś & Piłat, 2021). Just as one workout does not build muscle, one expression of thanks does not build culture. Strength comes from what happens between the events, not just during them.

Teachers’ wellbeing data makes this painfully clear. When appreciation is infrequent or delayed, its impact diminishes. The Gallup Workplace Report (2020) found that employees who received recognition in the past seven days were twice as likely to report being engaged at work compared to those who had not. The same logic applies to schools. Regular, meaningful recognition that is specific, timely and authentic creates the psychological safety and belonging that sustain performance. Without it, people disengage. In emotional intelligence terms, this is the difference between relational empathy, where people feel seen regularly, and performative empathy, where people are only acknowledged when it is convenient or expected.

Turning Gratitude into Culture

Creating a culture of everyday gratitude requires intention. It begins by making appreciation specific. A vague “thank you” is pleasant, but a detailed one such as “thank you for staying behind to help that student when everyone else had left, it made a real difference” lands with authenticity. Timing also matters. Gratitude expressed soon after the act has greater emotional impact. Direction is equally important. Gratitude should not only flow from leaders to staff. It should flow between colleagues, from students to teachers and outward to families and the wider community. When everyone participates, gratitude becomes cultural rather than hierarchical.

In classrooms and workplaces, the most effective gratitude practices are small, consistent and relational. Some schools create weekly “shout-out circles” where staff share moments of appreciation tied to the school’s values. Others use short daily reflection routines where students name one act of kindness or support they noticed. These rituals take minutes but build enduring norms. Families can use a simple two-minute nightly gratitude check-in by asking, “What is one thing someone did for you today, and what did it mean?” The goal is not grand gestures, but consistency. Over time, that consistency changes brain wiring, emotional tone and relational culture.

When gratitude becomes part of a culture, recognition stops being a performance and starts becoming a habit.

Why Daily Gratitude Matters More Than a Single Day

Appreciation days like World Teachers’ Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day hold symbolic importance. They offer shared language, collective visibility and a reason to pause. When they are not linked to everyday practice, however, they risk becoming tokenistic and momentary gestures that comfort the giver more than they strengthen the receiver. When deeper issues, such as teachers leaving the profession, parents feeling overwhelmed and workplaces struggling with disconnection remain. Gratitude must become a daily commitment, not an annual campaign.

Emotional intelligence theory reminds us that empathy and gratitude work in tandem. Empathy allows us to feel what another person feels. Gratitude allows us to acknowledge what that feeling or act means to us. When those two are woven together regularly, relationships deepen, communities strengthen and wellbeing improves. Gratitude-based practices have also been shown to improve heart-rate variability, a marker of physiological regulation (McCraty & Childre, 2010). The body responds to appreciation. It settles. It softens. It connects.

World Teachers’ Day is a wonderful moment to celebrate. Bring the flowers, host the morning tea and post the messages of thanks. The key is to treat the day as a starting line rather than the finish line. Let it remind us that gratitude is a daily practice, not a yearly performance. The real power of gratitude lies not in one grand gesture but in hundreds of small, genuine ones shared throughout the year. When gratitude becomes part of how we communicate, lead and relate, we move from appreciation as an event to appreciation as a way of being.