We hope you and yours are healthy and well and also hope the only COVID-19 impact you’ve experienced is that of inconvenience. Our hearts go out to those who are truly suffering from the coronavirus or, worse, watching a loved one suffer from it.

Most of us are more than just a little stressed as we find ourselves working from home or even worse, on a hiatus from work without income until this crisis is over. While we are confident that our industry will pick back up in the near future, we are also thankful that lessons learned from this crisis will only serve to improve clinical functions and efficiency, making us stronger as an industry and a nation.

The good news is that in all this madness, there is one sure way to be happy and healthy now while you are staying home.

Say, Thank you.

Research has shown that expressing gratitude by doing something simple like jotting positive thoughts in a “Grateful Journal” or writing a thank you note can change your mood, alleviate anxiety, improve your relationships with others, and can generally make you feel happier. And being happy impacts our overall physical, mental, and emotional health.

Feelings of gratitude stimulate the parts of the brain that control emotions, memory, and bodily functions. That being said, being grateful can reduce physical pain, help regulate stress, improve quality of sleep, release noxious emotions, and reduce anxiety and depression.

And, remember a few weeks ago when you were sighing and wishing your busy life would slow down? Now is the time to be thankful, now is the time to enjoy the moments at home, to spend time with those you live with and love, to bake and cook, to paint and write, to clean and organize, to listen to music and read a book.

“Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

Robert Brault