Got gratitude? Get it with only 3 blessings/day.

Early in his medical career, Mark Greenawald, MD, a family physician at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia, had the honor of caring for a patient with cancer. While the course of treatment was agonizing, the patient remained upbeat even though he knew he was going to die. When Dr. Greenawald asked what allowed the patient to be so upbeat, the patient noted he has lived a good life. It was the practice of gratitude that helped enhance his well-being.

“I found a letter from this gentleman and inside, his message was very simple and it stirred me to tears at the time,” Dr. Greenawald said during an AMA webinar. “It said, ‘Hey doc, you also won the lottery when you were born. Don't wait until you're dying to remember that and be sure to pass it forward.’”“We see things not as they are, but as we are, and this patient demonstrated that so clearly to me early on in my career,” he said. “We have the opportunity to see things differently often just by changing our perspective a little bit.”

Here are ways physicians and other health professionals can integrate the habit of gratitude into their daily routine.

Three blessings practice

“What we know about gratitude is it’s a gift that you can give yourself,” said Dr. Greenawald, adding that it can improve relationships, physical symptoms, and “our capacity to cope with the stress so it can help make us more resilient. All those things are part of the gift that you can give yourself by having regular gratitude practice.”

By following three good things or the three blessings practice, physicians can practice daily gratitude. This means, “once a day, take five minutes to write down three good things or three blessings that happen in your day,” he said. Then “go one step further and reflect on what it is about those things that you're grateful for or made those so good for you.”

“Doing this regularly—even over the course of two weeks—once a day will allow you to begin to recalibrate your gratitude lens so that you will start looking out and seeing more gratitude because that's what you're looking for,” said Dr. Greenawald.