Have you ever gotten a thoughtful gift from a friend or family member and thought about how nice the gesture was?

Your next thought was probably something along the lines of, “Oh, better send them a thank you card!” But then hours, days, weeks pass, and you still haven’t written it. Sound familiar?

Many of us let the window to send a thank-you note pass. You might think, “Eh, it’s been a while, it’s probably not worth it” and then you never send it. But even if time has passed, research shows that you should still probably send it.

A recent study published in the journal Psychological Science says that expressing gratitude can improve the well being of both the person expressing the gratitude, as well as the person receiving it.

What’s more, some thought that sending a card wouldn’t really affect the recipient, which is why they put it off. However, the study showed just the opposite—that a lot of recipients reported being “ecstatic” when receiving a letter of gratitude, rating their happiness level a 4 of 5 (senders estimated the result being a 3).

“They think it’s not going to be that big a deal,” said Amit Kumar, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies well-being. But it turns out it’s actually much more of a bigger deal than we even thought!

What’s more, the study found that the majority participants who thought about sending a thank you card thought that it could make the recipient feel kind of awkward, but that simply isn’t true.

Lastly, another issue senders faced was that they overestimated how much their writing would be scrutinized by the person receiving it. For some reason, the majority of us humans think that if we send a thank-you note, the receiver will think we’re not good writers.

Of course, that wasn’t the case either. In fact, the study participants received feedback that they were even more competent at writing than they thought.

Basically, it turns out, we think that showing gratitude towards someone else will only result in negative consequences, and this can lead us to not send the card at all. But if you’re every on the fence about doing it, just do it.

“Wise decisions are guided by an accurate assessment of the expected value of action,” the study concluded. “Underestimating the value of prosocial actions, such as expressing gratitude, may keep people from engaging in behavior that would maximize their own—and others’—well-being.”

So if we learned anything from this, it’s that if you’re ever mulling over whether or not you should write a thank-you letter to someone, or even just a letter of gratitude, don’t think twice. It’s very unlikely your recipient is going to feel any negative way about it.

It might help if you put yourself in their shoes—what if you got a meaningful note of gratitude from someone you weren’t expecting? Wouldn’t that make you feel great?

Have you ever thought twice about sending a thank you card? Does this make you think you should express more gratitude?