11/27/2025
Happy Thanksgiving! We tend to think about Thanksgiving as a holiday once a year, but I’m going to talk about how being thankful can actually affect your brain and decrease depression and improve overall well-being. I’m Dr. Suegee, the Medical Director here at Liminal Medicine.
There’s been a lot of research in the last 10 years on gratitude practices. That means being thankful for things, and they have found that it reduces depression, increases your serotonin and dopamine levels and actually even improves your immunity. It also decreases the activity of the amygdala, and the fight or flight parts of your brain, and decreases depression.
So how do we get these benefits? There are a lot of ways you can practice gratitude. One of the things that you can do is, of course, today being Thanksgiving, we’re all thinking about things we are grateful for. We may be grateful for the people around us. Grateful for getting this far through the year. Whatever it is that that you’re thankful for right at this moment. Maybe write that down. Keep a gratitude journal. Just every day write down at least one or two things you are grateful for.
Another thing you can do is maybe once every couple of days write a gratitude letter, a thank you letter to somebody. You don’t have to send it. It works better apparently if you write it and send it or even call and read it to the person if you know them that well. If you know anyone who has been helpful to you that you’re grateful for, or you’re thankful for something that they did for you, think of you sending a little note or a little email actually helps you.
So on this Thanksgiving day let’s think about what we’re all grateful for, and maybe pick up that practice right now of starting a gratitude journal, and helping both the mental health of ourselves and the people around us who receive that gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
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