Last week, I touch on the science of gratitude. (Explore more deeply in this blog). Practicing gratitude literally reshapes your brain and lowers stress. This week, we’re putting that science into practice.
Gratitude is often misunderstood as a soft emotion, but in truth, it’s one of the most powerful neurobiological tools we have for resilience.
It helps shift your brain’s focus away from threat and toward connection, safety, and meaning.
And the best part?
It doesn’t take hours of meditation or elaborate routines. Just a few focused minutes of intentional gratitude can start to rewire your neural pathways for calm, empathy, and perspective.
“It’s not happiness that brings us gratitude; it’s gratitude that brings us happiness.”
— David Steindl-Rast
Coach's Corner
This week’s exercise: Practice Gratitude Through Story
Take five minutes to recall one specific story of gratitude. Maybe it was a patient’s kind words, a colleague’s encouragement, or a moment when someone truly saw your effort.
Re-live that memory. Picture the scene, recall the feeling, and let yourself experience it again.
Notice what shifts in your body—the slowing breath, the release in your shoulders, the small sense of warmth that follows. That’s neurobiology in motion. That’s gratitude doing its quiet work.
Next week, we’ll wrap up our gratitude series by exploring how to make it stick and turnmomentary gratitude into a sustainable mindset.
If you’d like help building practices like this into your everyday life, whether to rediscover joy in medicine or navigate a new chapter, let's chat.
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Because gratitude isn’t just something you feel. It’s something you can train. And like everything else, it takes practice
Ben
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