You’ve read the tips: sleep more, move more, breathe more deeply, meditate, drink water. All great. But what if I told you that one of the most powerful things you can do for your well-being as a lawyer doesn’t require a mindfulness app, gym membership, or even a standing desk? Just trust your colleagues a little more.

Sounds overly simple, but according to recent research, it’s anything but soft. A growing body of evidence shows that trusting the people you work with is strongly correlated with longer life spans, lower inflammation levels, and improved mental health. Researchers found that people who believe others have good intentions are not only more resilient, but they are biologically healthier. This isn’t just touchy-feely theory. It’s neurochemistry.

When you trust the people around you and when you feel psychologically safe in your workplace, your brain produces less cortisol, the stress hormone linked to burnout, anxiety, and depression. You also get more oxytocin, which is tied to empathy and connection. Translation? Trust literally calms your nervous system.

Trust is no easy task for a lawyer. We are trained to be suspicious and to question motives. Our profession has long been defined by adversarial roles and high stakes. But it is possible to be competitive without being distrustful.

Part of the difficulty comes from the fact that, in litigation especially, lawyers spend their days navigating half-truths, strategic omissions, and outright misrepresentations. We are rewarded for spotting weaknesses in an argument and punished if we take someone’s word at face value and it turns out to be wrong. Add to that the reality that every piece of information exchanged can become ammunition in the case, and it’s no wonder trust in opposing counsel feels like a professional liability. Many lawyers have been burned before and caught off guard by a “surprise” filing or blindsided by a broken handshake deal. Those experiences leave a residue.

But here’s the thing: trusting opposing counsel doesn’t mean lowering your guard or abandoning your duty to your client. You can acknowledge that they, like you, are bound by ethical rules, while still verifying facts and preparing as though they will make their strongest possible case against you. Trust in this context is less about assuming their benevolence and more about assuming their professionalism. It’s choosing to believe they will follow procedural rules, honor agreements made on the record, and engage in honest scheduling discussions so that you can both do your jobs without unnecessary gamesmanship.

In fact, extending a baseline level of professional trust can make you a more effective advocate. When opposing counsel knows you will keep your word, negotiations tend to be more productive, discovery disputes less toxic, and trial preparation less bogged down by petty fights. You can spend more of your energy crafting arguments and anticipating substantive issues instead of spinning your wheels over avoidable friction.

Trust in this sense is not weakness. It’s strategic. You can still zealously represent your client while honoring your role as an officer of the court. And you may just find that giving opposing counsel the benefit of the doubt, until they give you a reason not to, reduces your stress level, improves your working relationships, and lets you focus on the battles that actually matter.

You can experiment with this by trusting someone with something small. Build small bridges that let others know you’re not in this alone, and they’re not either. Turns out the best wellness tip of the year might not be a smoothie or a Peloton ride. It might just be giving your colleague or opposing counsel the benefit of the doubt.