Are you tired of the same old suggestions to improve your well-being and resilience? By now, we have all been to seminars and read articles telling us how mindfulness, gratitude practices, physical exercise, good sleep, a healthy diet, and relational connection will improve our mental health and make us more resilient to the stress of practicing law. These are all great tools, but some of you might want to try something a little less traditional. If you are one of those people, consider one of the following practices:
Go on a social media or news fast. We are all familiar with the feeling of overwhelm that can come from watching too much news or doomscrolling on social media. Try a fast or cut back to reduce anxiety. Studies show that watching the news has an adverse effect on our mental health.
Declutter to reduce anxiety. Studies show that decluttering can reduce anxiety, improve creativity, and increase focus and self-esteem.
Try meditating in a sensory deprivation tank. We all know the benefits of meditation. But meditation can be difficult when there are sensory distractions. A sensory deprivation tank removes those distractions.Â
Use light therapy to improve mood and sleep quality. Many therapists use light therapy to improve mood and sleep quality for their patients.Â
Explore breathwork practices to improve mental health. Numerous studies have shown that various forms of breathwork can reduce stress and improve mental health. If you want to do a deeper dive on the power of breathwork, check our James Nestor’s book Breath.Â
Take a sound bath to calm your nerves. While there is not a lot of scientific evidence of the benefits of sound baths, those who engage in this practice claim that it calms their nervous system and creates a feeling of deep relaxation.
Take an ice bath or immerse yourself in cold water.  Some small studies have suggested that there are mental health benefits to ice baths and cold water immersions. However, Mayo Clinic points out that the science is not strong and much research is still needed. If you are thinking trying this practice, you may want to first consult your physician.
Go on a silent meditation retreat. Have you ever wondered what it would be like not to talk at all for four days? I did this several years ago at a silent mediation retreat. I experienced a calmer mind and greater focus by the end of the retreat.Â
These are just a few suggestions to make your well-being journey more interesting. If you are bored with your current routine, try one or more of these practices. You might find that it provides the kind of relief that more traditional practices have not brought.
When was the last time you had a conversation while your phone was completely out of sight? Not face down on the table. Not buzzing quietly in your pocket. Not within arm’s reach just in case. Most of us cannot remember.
We have grown so accustomed to living within a constant field of alerts, updates, and low-grade distraction that we barely notice what it costs us. But the cost is real. It shows up in half-finished thoughts, missed cues, and the subtle but unmistakable feeling that no one is fully there.
I saw a short reel recently that stuck with me in a way most things do not. It was simple. Two people were talking, and the video asked you to imagine a string stretched between them. As long as both people stayed present, the string remained tight. The moment one of them reached for a phone, the string went slack. That landed for me, because if I am being honest, I see myself in it.
The reflex is almost automatic now. A pause in conversation, a moment of uncertainty, or even a flicker of curiosity, and my hand moves toward my phone. Sometimes I tell myself I am looking something up. Sometimes I am just filling the silence. Lately, I have noticed something else as well. I am quicker to defer to AI for answers that might have once unfolded naturally between two people. A question comes up, and instead of asking, “What do you think?” or “Have you ever heard this before?” I reach for a tool that gives me an immediate response. It is efficient, but it short-circuits something that used to matter–the back-and-forth, the shared figuring out and the small moments where a conversation deepens because no one rushes to resolve it. There is a quiet cost to that.
Curiosity used to stretch conversations. It invited questions, stories, and a little speculation. It allowed two people to sit with not knowing and work their way through it together. Now, we resolve the question before it has a chance to breathe. The string never gets the opportunity to tighten.
For lawyers, that matters more than we might think. This is a profession built not just on information, but on attention. It depends on listening long enough to hear what is not being said. It requires sitting in the pause instead of rushing to fill it. If we are constantly reaching for something else like our phones, a quick answer, or a faster path, we may be solving the problem, but we are missing the person.
Here are a few things worth keeping in mind:
Even a silent phone changes the conversation. Research from the University of Essex found that the mere presence of a phone, even when no one is using it, reduces feelings of closeness, trust, and empathy during conversations. Participants reported less meaningful connection simply because a device was nearby. In other words, it is not just the interruption that matters. It is the signal that something else might be more important than the person in front of you.
Attention residue is real, and it lingers. When we shift our attention, even briefly, part of our focus stays behind. That residue reduces our ability to fully engage in whatever comes next. When you glance at your phone mid-conversation, you are not just pausing the interaction. You are diluting it.
Depth of conversation drives well-being. People who spend more time in substantive conversations, as opposed to small talk, report higher levels of happiness. Depth requires time, patience, and uninterrupted attention, which are exactly the things our devices erode. Research shows that the mere presence of a smartphone can reduce available cognitive capacity, even when it is turned off.
Maybe the issue is not that we have too much technology, or even that we now have instant answers at our fingertips. The issue may be that we have lost some tolerance for not knowing. We have become less comfortable letting a question sit, allowing a conversation to wander, or giving another person our full and undivided attention.
The string does not break all at once. It loosens, little by little, every time we reach for something else. The fix is not complicated, but it is uncomfortable. Put the phone away. Leave the question unanswered a little longer. Stay in the conversation long enough for it to become something more than efficient, and long enough for it to matter.
The case looked like hundreds of other cases the lawyer had handled before. The new client had been injured in a car accident. The facts felt familiar. It was a rear-end collision with soft tissue injuries and clear liability. He opened the file and got to work the way he always did. He ordered the medical records, reviewed the accident report, and spoke with witnesses. Everything moved forward on a comfortable, well-worn track.
There did not seem to be any sense of urgency. In North Carolina, he had three years to file suit. Plenty of time. About a year after the case came in, he filed the complaint against the other driver. Shortly after, the lawyer was served with a motion to dismiss. The basis for the motion was the expiration of the statute of limitations.
The lawyer frantically reviewed the accident report and, for the first time, noticed that the accident had occurred in Tennessee. The applicable statute of limitations was one year, not three. By the time the complaint was filed, the claim was already time-barred.
Nothing about the case itself was particularly complicated. The mistake did not come from a lack of effort. It came from something more subtle.
Familiarity.
Lawyers often rely on pattern recognition. We see the same types of cases over and over, and that experience allows us to move efficiently. We know what to look for. We know what matters. We know the steps. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time a new file is opened.
But that same familiarity can quietly introduce risk. When a case looks routine, it is easy to assume that the rules governing it are routine as well. We stop asking certain questions because we think we already know the answers. We rely on past experience to fill in the gaps. Most of the time, that works.
The danger is not in the obvious differences. It is in the small ones that seem minor at first glance. Those are easy to miss precisely because the case feels so familiar. And once that initial assumption is made, it tends to carry forward. The file is handled the way similar files have always been handled. Deadlines are calculated based on habit rather than verification. The case moves forward on autopilot, until it doesn’t.
This is how experienced lawyers end up making preventable mistakes. Not because they do not know the law, but because they know it so well that they stop checking.
The fix is not complicated, but it does require awareness.
Treat every new matter as if it has something about it that is different. Even if it looks routine, slow down just enough at the beginning to confirm the basics. Where did the events occur? Which law applies? What deadlines control?
Do not assume. Verify facts. That does not mean you abandon efficiency. It means you build a habit of pausing long enough to make sure the familiar case is actually what it appears to be. The cases that feel the most routine are often the ones that deserve a second look.
Experience is one of a lawyer’s greatest assets, but it can also create blind spots. The more familiar a case feels, the easier it is to stop asking basic questions. That is why routine cases deserve just as much attention at the front end as unusual ones. In the practice of law, the most dangerous file is often the one that looks like every other file on your desk.
It is no longer a question of whether lawyers are using AI. They are. Adoption has moved quickly from curiosity to everyday workflow, and many lawyers are now turning to these tools not just for editing or summarizing, but to help generate arguments, outline positions, and frame legal analysis. In some cases, the first draft of a brief or email is no longer coming from the lawyer. It is coming from a prompt.
In the past, when a lawyer received a new matter with complex legal issues, the lawyer would review the facts, identify the legal questions, and begin pulling relevant authority. There might be some time spent sitting with the problem, thinking through different angles, weighing possible arguments, and considering alternative approaches before anything was written. That early stage was not wasted time. It was where the real thinking happened. It was where the lawyer organized her thoughts.
Now, that step is increasingly being skipped. Instead, the lawyer uploads the issue into an AI tool and asks for an analysis, an argument, or even a complete draft, relying on the output as the starting point rather than their own reasoning.
It feels efficient. It feels modern. It feels like you are getting a head start. But there is a subtle shift happening in that moment, and it may not be a good one.
Lawyers have traditionally been trained to think first and write second. The act of working through a problem is where the real value lies. Writing is not just the output. It is part of the thinking process. It is how you discover what you actually believe.
The “prompt first” approach flips that sequence. It invites you to outsource the initial thinking and start with a fully formed answer. The AI gives you structure, language, and conclusions before you have done the hard work of analysis yourself. That can feel like momentum, but it skips the most important part of the job.
When you start with your own thinking, you are actively engaging with the problem. You notice gaps. You ask better questions. You spot the issue that is not obvious on the surface. When you start with a generated answer, you are more likely to react to what is in front of you. You edit. You tweak. You polish. But you may never fully interrogate whether the underlying reasoning is sound. That is how hallucinated AI results slip through the cracks.
We’re not only talking about simple incorrect citations or misstatements of law. The more concerning mistakes are the subtle ones. There are arguments that are technically correct but strategically weak or issues that are framed too narrowly. Those are harder to catch because they look right.
A lawyer’s duty of competence includes the obligation to exercise independent judgment. That does not mean you cannot use tools. It means you cannot rely on them in a way that replaces your own analysis. If you start with the prompt and skip the thinking, you are moving in that direction.
And in the long-term, this cognitive offloading can impair your ability to analyze and think critically. Studies show a strong negative correlation between AI usage and critical thinking.
The good news is that this problem is avoidable. Using AI does not require you to surrender the part of the process where legal judgment is formed. It simply requires some discipline about when the tool enters the picture. The goal is not to avoid AI altogether, but to make sure it comes after your own initial analysis rather than before it. In other words, AI should supplement your thinking, not substitute for it.
Pause before you prompt. Take a few minutes to outline the problem in your own words. Identify the likely issues. Think through possible outcomes. Even a rough mental sketch is enough. Then, if you use AI, use it as a second step. Let it challenge your thinking, not supply it.
When you review the output, do not just edit for style. Interrogate it. Ask what is missing. Check whether the conclusions actually follow from the facts. Verify the law. Treat it as a draft that needs real scrutiny, not a finished product that just needs polishing. Don’t be afraid to enter a prompt that asks, “Are you sure that is right?” In the end, the real value a lawyer brings is not the ability to generate an answer quickly. It is the ability to exercise judgment, spot what matters, and think through a problem in a way that serves the client’s interests. AI can be a useful tool in that process, but it is a poor substitute for the disciplined reasoning clients are paying for. If we are not careful, the convenience of prompting first can quietly weaken the very skill that defines good lawyering. That is why the order matters. Think first. Prompt second. And keep the lawyer, not the machine, in charge of the analysis.
Shortly after we returned to in-person events after COVID, I was giving a well-being presentation where I discussed a variety of tools and practices that can make us more resilient to the stresses of practicing law. I asked the audience what other practices they relied on to get through COVID. I recall one person telling me that it was music that helped him to keep his head above water during quarantine. I had never thought of music in that way and wasn’t sure whether there was some scientific evidence to support the idea that music can have a positive effect on our mental health. Turns out, there is.
Music isn’t just background noise. It’s brain medicine. It’s a cognitive balm, a subtle shift in the emotional weather, and for those of us navigating the stress and precision of legal work, it might be one of the most underused tools in the well-being toolbox.
Their work reveals that music engages nearly every region of the brain: emotion, memory, movement, language. Studies show that music can ease physical pain, reduce cortisol, and lift mood. In fact, a 2023 review in Frontiers in Psychology found that music therapy helped reduce anxiety, depression, and even post-operative pain in patients across a wide range of clinical settings. This comprehensive review examines the various neurochemical, physiological, and psychological factors that underpin the impact of music on pain perception. It highlights how music therapy can influence pain management by affecting emotional and cognitive processes, thereby reducing the perception of pain and improving overall well-being.
The legal profession runs on logic, deadlines, and high stakes. That’s precisely why we need an emotional counterbalance. Music can be the breath in between the briefs, the silence broken beautifully by sound.
Need to reset between client meetings? Try mindful listening—five minutes of instrumental music with your eyes closed.
Want a creative outlet? Dust off the guitar. Join a choir. Pick up the drums. It’s not frivolous—it’s neuroscience.
Feeling burned out? Consider music therapy. Many therapists are now integrating it into their treatment plans for stress-related disorders.
