In today’s fast-paced, high-demand world, burnout has become an all-too-common experience. Optometrists, fellow health care workers and teachers, parents, and business leaders pour so much of themselves into their work and others, that they become emotionally drained, mentally fatigued, and physically exhausted. While solutions for burnout typically focus on time off or workload adjustments, research increasingly suggests a simple yet powerful antidote that originates within the brain itself: gratitude.
Reading the Research
Gratitude, or thankfulness, can have psychological, physical, and social benefits.1 Specifically, by focusing on what we are grateful for, our brains release dopamine and serotonin, which are the feel-good chemicals that positively impact mood, willpower, and motivation.2
Physically, gratitude enables us to achieve better wake/sleep cycles, an improved immune system, and better cardiovascular health.
Socially, we can improve our communication to enhance relationships with family and coworkers.2
Gratitude’s Affect
When we practice gratitude, apparently, we build stronger neural pathways associated with optimism and resilience. This, in turn, helps us recover faster from setbacks and reduces our likelihood of falling into patterns of negativity, rumination, or stress.3
Practicing gratitude also quiets the amygdala—the brain’s fear center—and boosts activity in the prefrontal cortex, where decision-making and emotional regulation live. In short, gratitude helps us become more grounded, thoughtful, and resilient.3
A real-world example: Gratitude consistently predicted less exhaustion, fewer sick days, and higher job satisfaction among nurses.4
Practicing Gratitude
A while back, a friend suggested I try “The Five-Minute Journal.” This is a journal that contains a page for each day to write down 3 things you were grateful for that day. These things could be a morning workout, a visit with a coworker, a phone call from a family member, or a visit with a patient, among other examples.
One study shows that journaling or writing about gratitude for 21 days yields increased gratitude and a reduction in burnout in health care professionals, including physicians and registered nurses, which persisted for up to 3 months after the experiment. Additionally, stress remained decreased even 12 weeks after the study.5
A Little Experiment
‘Tis the season of gratitude. As a result, I’d like to suggest you join in on a little experiment with me. Let’s journal each day for 21 days (or even 30) about 3 things for which we are grateful. The journal can be a notebook, on our phones, or, like some of my friends do, via social media. Let’s see whether the aforementioned research bears out. What have we got to lose? (Hopefully, the feeling of burnout.) OM
References
1. PositivePsychology.com. The neuroscience of gratitude & its effects on the brain. https://positivepsychology.com/neuroscience-of-gratitude/ (Accessed Oct.15, 2025)
2. Hazlett LI, Moieni M, Irwin MR, et al. Exploring neural mechanisms of the health benefits of gratitude in women: A randomized controlled trial. Brain Behav Immun. 2021;95:444-453. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2021.04.019
3. McCanlies EC, Gu JK, Andrew ME, Violanti JM. The effect of social support, gratitude, resilience and satisfaction with life on depressive symptoms among police officers following Hurricane Katrina. Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2018;64(1):63-72. doi:10.1177/0020764017746197
4. Burke RJ, Fiksenbaum L, NG ES. Virtues, work satisfactions and psychological wellbeing among nurses. International Journal of Workplace Health Management. 2(3):202-219 DOI:10.1108/17538350910993403
5. Tully S, Hong T, Johnson M, Lebron M, Land T, Armendariz BS. Gratitude practice to decrease stress and burnout in acute-care health professionals. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues of Nursing Vol 28, No. 3.
