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Mindfulness Techniques That Help Lawyers Break Out of Stress Cycles

Stress can build quickly in the legal profession, often trapping lawyers in exhausting cycles of overthinking, pressure, and emotional fatigue. In fact, a Reuters study found that 66% of lawyers said their time in the profession had harmed their mental health. Another 46% reported they were considering leaving entirely due to stress or burnout.

Mindfulness offers a practical, accessible way to interrupt those patterns. Grounding the mind, easing tension, and finding brief moments of clarity help lawyers break free from reactive stress loops. These practices help them reconnect with their work from a place of balance and control.

In this article, we’ll explore simple mindfulness techniques that support this shift.

Recognizing Stress Triggers Before They Spiral

Recognizing stress triggers early is one of the most powerful ways lawyers can stop stress cycles before they take over. Mindfulness helps by bringing attention to the first signs of tension. It also highlights the subtle moments when the body or mind signals that something is off.

The Mayo Clinic suggests starting by identifying what reliably causes your stress. What makes you feel tense, irritated, or suddenly overwhelmed? Do you notice headaches or stomach discomfort without a clear medical cause? Is your focus slipping or your sleep disrupted?

By observing these cues with curiosity instead of judgment, lawyers can catch stress at its earliest stages. They can then take mindful action before it spirals into a full cycle of pressure and reactivity.

Grounding Techniques That Instantly Calm the Nervous System

Grounding techniques help the nervous system settle quickly by directing attention away from spiraling thoughts and back into the present moment.

One simple option is slow, intentional breathing where you inhale deeply, pause briefly, and then exhale longer than you inhaled. This signals the body to relax and reduces the intensity of stress. Another method is physical grounding, like placing your feet on the floor or pressing your palms together.

The Cleveland Clinic also recommends the 3-3-3 technique, which means noticing three things you can see, hear, and touch. It may be a tree outside the window, a book on your shelf, or a photo on your desk. Pay attention to colors, textures, and small details. Then repeat the process for sounds and physical sensations.

These practices create an immediate feeling of steadiness and help lawyers regain control during high-pressure moments.

Mindful Reflection Practices for Long-Term Stress Reduction

Mindful reflection helps lawyers break long-term stress patterns by creating space to understand what truly affects their well-being. Simple practices such as journaling, a mindful review of the day, or intentional decompression routines create space to slow down. They also help you notice what triggered stress and how you responded.

Approaching these reflections with curiosity rather than judgment builds resilience and prevents the same stressful cycles from repeating.

Reflection can also inspire long-term professional growth, especially when lawyers explore new ways to shape their careers through flexible learning paths. This can include options like pursuing an online Juris Doctorate program. Such opportunities help lawyers grow their skills, broaden their practice options, and align their careers with their goals.

Cleveland State University notes that an online JD program requires 90 credits and includes experiential learning. The best thing is that it can be completed part-time in just over three years.

Using Mindful Pauses to Interrupt Negative Thought Loops

Using mindful pauses is one of the most effective ways for lawyers to interrupt negative thought loops before they intensify. A mindful pause can be as simple as stopping for a moment and taking a slow breath. It also involves observing what is happening in your mind without getting pulled into it. This brief reset creates enough space to choose a calmer response instead of reacting automatically.

Verywell Mind also suggests shifting your focus through healthy distractions when thoughts feel especially persistent. Stepping outside, moving your body, getting absorbed in a project, or reading for a few minutes can all help. Even activities like tai chi or karate can clear the mind. These small pauses redirect mental energy and break the momentum of stress-driven thinking.

Body Awareness Practices That Release Tension and Promote Focus

Body awareness practices help lawyers release built-up tension and return to a state of steady focus during demanding workdays. These techniques involve checking in with physical sensations rather than ignoring them, which is something many attorneys unintentionally do while rushing between tasks.

Noticing tightness in areas like the jaw, shoulders, or lower back is an important first step. It gives you the chance to gently relax those spots with slow breathing or simple stretches. Even simple actions like rolling the shoulders, loosening the neck, or unclenching the hands can reduce stress immediately.

Bringing attention back to the body also quiets mental noise. The result is clearer thinking and more thoughtful, deliberate responses. This renewed physical awareness supports better concentration and more grounded decision-making.

Emotional Labeling to Reduce Overwhelm and Reclaim Control

Emotional labeling is a simple but powerful mindfulness practice that helps lawyers reduce overwhelm and regain a sense of control. Instead of getting swept up in stress, you pause and name what you feel.

Labeling the emotion creates space and helps you understand what is happening inside. This shift calms the nervous system and interrupts the urge to react quickly or defensively.

By identifying emotions with honesty and without judgment, lawyers can navigate challenging situations with more clarity, stability, and confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can mindfulness help lawyers who struggle with chronic stress or anxiety?

Yes, mindfulness can help lawyers. It trains the mind to stay present, reduces overthinking, and calms the nervous system. With regular practice, lawyers often feel more grounded, clearer in their decisions, and better able to manage ongoing pressure.

What mindfulness techniques work best during high-stakes legal work?

Breathing exercises, grounding techniques, and brief mindful pauses work best during high-stakes legal work. These practices steady the mind, reduce tension, and help lawyers stay focused and composed. Even a few slow breaths or a quick sensory check can restore clarity in demanding moments.

How do I know if my mindfulness routine is actually working?

You’ll know your mindfulness routine is working when you notice small but consistent shifts. These may include calmer reactions, better focus, improved sleep, or less tension during stressful moments. You may also find it easier to pause before responding and recover more quickly from stressful situations.

Breaking the Cycle With Mindful Awareness

Mindfulness gives lawyers practical tools to step out of stress cycles and return to a steadier, more grounded way of working. Even small practices can create meaningful shifts in focus, clarity, and emotional balance.

By integrating these techniques into daily routines, lawyers can strengthen their resilience and navigate their profession with greater ease and confidence.

Author bio: Writer by day, dream catcher by night. Marchelle Abrahams cut her teeth during the infancy of the internet when the dial sound of the modem was more than a soundbite at a rave. Not a Millennial and not a Boomer, Marchelle is an in-betweener, making her a special breed of human. As a qualified journalist, Marchelle believes her superpower is stringing a few words together and people reading them. That, and the ability to take her kids on with her unique brand of gnarly comebacks.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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Tips for Lawyers: Manage Stress Getting Back to School

As a school lawyer, I normally love back to school season. This year, though, I am struggling. The summer was busier than I expected and the back to school rush at work happened earlier too. This means that I am feeling overwhelmed, tired, and stressed.

What is a lawyer and meditation teacher to do with this situation? Well, I don’t promise to be an expert here. This struggle is real for many of us for a reason. But I can say that a few intentional strategies have helped me establish order and get ready for back to school.

Manage the Biggest Stress Points First

When things get very busy, I narrow the scope of my focus. My guiding principle is to do now what has to be done today. Clearly, this is not a sustainable approach on a long-term basis. Living day to day has some advantages, but so does planning ahead.

Even so, focusing on what has to be done right now is an essential strategy for regaining order in times of chaos. It can help you build some momentum for managing the challenges of life. It can also help you avoid other problems that may emerge later if you don’t tackle priorities first.

Thus, when your schedule is too busy or life is in flux, a first essential step is identifying prioriy tasks and addressing those first.

Simplify and, If Possible, Delegate

After you have triaged the priority issues, another step for reestablishing order is to simplify whatever you can. Remove unnecessary steps or flourishes from projects. Look for easier ways to accomplish tasks. Delegate or get help in any way that you can.

Many lawyers tend to be high achievers. This means that we often do more than what the circumstances truly require. When time allows, this is not a terrible life strategy to adopt. But in times of stress or change, it can add work and sap energy that you do not have. Simplifying tasks and focusing on what is truly essential can help you avoid this trap.

As a quick example of this, I used this strategy to handle some of the back to school chores for my kids. They had a doctor’s appointment and needed new shoes. Instead of going to my favorite shoe store, I went to one very close to the doctor’s office. This allowed me to consolidate travel time, so the kids could get new shoes and I could get the job done.

When time is limited, don’t make extra work for yourself. Simplify tasks as much as possible.

Image of post it note with question "How could I make this simpler?" as discussed in the blog post about back to school

Prioritize Healthy Habits

When times are busy or stressful, healthy and supportive habits are often the first things to suffer. Even though most of us know what is good for us, disarray in one’s schedule can make it harder to eat, sleep, and exercise like we should. These habits, though, can have an immediate beneficial impact on how we feel mentally and physically.

For this reason, when my schedule is in flux, I often prioritize the basics. I try to refresh my sleep hygiene protocols and get a regular schedule back in place. I make sure I have some healthy ingredients on hand so that I can eat nutrient-dense meals to power my days. Even though it can be a struggle, I get back to my normal meditation and exercise routine too.

Let me be clear. All of these things take time and energy to manage. Despite this, I prioritize them in times of change or stress because I know they are priorities. These habits help me feel my best and manage stress, so that I can face whatever I need to face in my daily life. In addition, because these practices are part of my normal routine, returning to them helps me create a sense of normalcy and order.

Conclusion

Back to school time can be a fun and exciting time. For many lawyers, though, it is also a stressful time. It’s a time of change and extra work to transition to a new phase in life. With some intentionality, though, you can manage the time crunch, stress, and extra work. I hope these tips help you regain some control and establish a new order that will help you and your family thrive this school year.

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Need Support This Election Day? Find It Here.

Image with details about meditations offered by the Mindfulness in Law Society to provide community and support during election day

If you haven’t voted already, I hope that you have a plan to do so. I was lucky to early vote yesterday few challenges and only a short wait. The only bad thing about this is that now all I can do is wait for the election results.

Waiting is not something I enjoy in normal circumstances. Most of us, regardless of political persuasion, would probably agree that this election cycle is anything but normal. It’s likely that you may be feeling stress, anxiety, or even significant fear about the election results.

Meditation Is Not a Magic Pill but It Can Be a Refuge

I take great pains as a lawyer and mindfulness teacher to avoid treating mindfulness practice like a magic pill. Meditation isn’t something you can do to make all the problems of life go away. To the contrary, when done right, meditation may help you get clearer about life. It’s one reason why the practice is hard.

Paradoxically, though, at the same time meditation can also be a refuge. It can be a safe space to find calm when the world is turbulent. Meditation can offer an opportunity for self-acceptance to deal with difficult emotions. At the most basic level, it can offer us at least a few minutes where we aren’t ruminating or doom scrolling about the state of the world.

Meditation Can Help Us Reorient to Goodness

The purpose meditation most often serves for me as a lawyer, mom, and community leader is that it reorients me to goodness. I’m a busy lady, I frequently deal with conflict, I’m often lost in my thoughts, and I tend to be intense and competitive. Meditation helps me rebalance the scales.

When I meditate, I let go of controlling things for a while. I let go of thinking and instead reactivate my faculties to perceive and sense. I stop judging and instead let holding and allowing to take the lead. And instead of closing off my heart, I work on opening it to myself, my community, and even the people who challenge me. This is how meditation can be a refuge that enables us to find stability so we can engage more deeply with life.

MILS Practices for Election Day

It is this idea that motivated me to volunteer to lead a meditation practice for the Mindfulness in Law Society on Election Day. First, I knew that offering a practice would be the most compassionate things I could do for myself. It would keep me busy and allow me to do something good and that I loved on a hard day.

Second, I knew that other lawyers out there were probably worried like me. Meditation can be a challenge when times are hard, so doing the practice in community can really help. Frankly, just remembering that you have a community can really help. That’s why MILS is offering a special practice on Election Day and the day after to offer the support of community to all in the legal profession.

Details of the MILS Election Day Support Practices

The Mindfulness in Law Society is offering 2 special practices on Election Day and the day after, Wednesday November 6th. Here are the details:

Election Day Sit

Event Details: I will offer a self-compassion meditation practice at 12 PM PST / 3 PM EST on Election Day, November 5th, on Zoom. This will be open to any law student or professor, lawyer, or anyone who works for a law firm or in the legal profession. The practice will focus on finding refuge in one’s community to support oneself.

How to Join: As a special event, you will need to register on Zoom to join the sit. The event is free of charge but you must register here for the link.

Special Wakeful Wednesday Sit

Event Details: I was set to guide the Wakeful Wednesday Sit this week, but my friend and highly experienced teacher, Judi Cohen, agreed to fill in for me. Knowing that none of us can predict what will happen this week, Judi will offer a special practice about welcoming whatever emotions may arise.

How to Join: This is a recurring event for MILS so simply click this link to the Virtual Sits page and hit “Wakeful Wednesday” to join on Zoom at 12 PM PST / 3 PM PST on November 6th.

Feel Free to Join Us in Community

I hope that you are making your voice heard at the polls this week. After you do that, please join us to practice meditation in community. Both practices are open to law students, law professors, lawyers regardless of practice status, paralegals, and anyone who works in the legal profession.

Even if you cannot join us for the sits, I will be wishing that all of you are safe, healthy, happy, and at peace.

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New Download: Stress Management Workbook

Cover image for blog post sharing stress management workbook for lawyers and profesionals

We just finished Well-Being Week in Law. One of the biggest struggles for many lawyers when it comes to well-being is stress. Even though our jobs are very stressful, many lawyers never learn good strategies for stress management.

To be sure, I believe in a holistic approach to stress management. As I have written before, change is needed in workplaces, our culture, and in the legal profession when it comes to mental health. Firms and companies should consider the overall impact of their policies and practices on employee mental health. In addition, lawyers in a position of power to reduce or avoid stress for ourselves or others should certainly do so.

Why Individual Stress Management Can Help

The thing is, though, that not matter how good our workplace policies or personal practices, stress always happens. It is a function of life. For lawyers, too, the challenging circumstances in which we often work play a big part. As a result, it is a good idea for lawyers and others in stressful jobs to understand stress and learn good stress management skills.

In part, this is because the way we respond to stress can have a huge impact in how it affects us. When we respond with awareness and self-kindness, we can learn approaches that work better for us and help us treat others better in the midst of stress.

Cover image for stress management workbook for lawyers and professionals.

Stress Management Is Not Doing It All on Your Own

That is one reason I speak and teach about stress management for lawyers and other professionals. Of course, as an introvert, I know that group discussion is not the only way to gain insights. Sometimes personal reflection may help us learn about ourselves too.

For those who want to consider stress management for themselves, I developed the Stress Management Workbook. It will help you bring awareness to practices and habits around stress and consider other ways of responding to it. Of course, social supports and help (including from trained professionals) is a huge element of stress management. Do not take this resource as a sign to manage stress all on your own. Instead, use it as a tool for fostering better connection with yourself and others.

Where Can I Get the Workbook?

To get the workbook, follow the link here, enter your email address, and download. That’s it.

While you’re at it, you can check out our other downloads for:

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5 Healthy Ways to Handle Emotions as a Lawyer

Cover image for blog post with title "Five Healthy Ways to Handle Emotions as a Lawyer"

The first question I ever asked a mindfulness teacher showed how uncomfortable I used to be with my emotions. In the Zen tradition, you get an opportunity for an interview with the teacher when you go on retreat. I was totally unprepared for this on my first one so I asked the question at the top of my mind: is it okay if I cry when I meditate?

In not so many words, the teacher kindly explained that, yes it was perfectly healthy for emotions to came up during meditation. She wisely didn’t push me too hard to examine why I had asked the question at all and let me figure out that more fundamental issue for myself. In retrospect, I now know that the question isn’t whether it is okay to cry during meditation.

The better question is why did I ever think it was a problem in the first place?

Emotions Are a Part of Healthy Life and Mindfulness Practice.

As I eventually discovered, I had been making some assumptions about my mindfulness practice and myself. I had assumed that meditation was about being calm. To dive a bit deeper, I had generally assumed that I should be in control of my emotions. When I reacted in ways that I didn’t expect, it didn’t feel healthy. Instead, it seemed to signal a problem.

In years of practice, I have come to learn that mindfulness is not about being calm. Instead, it is about being as you are. A perceived lack of control over emotions isn’t the problem either. Usually, the problems arise when we fight against that lack of control.

Even so, lawyers are in the position where we often must modulate and monitor our emotions to do our jobs. How can we do this in a healthy way? Here are the five strategies rooted in mindfulness and compassion that I use.

Image listing the five healthy ways to handle emotions with mindfulness as shared in the blog post

1. Give Your Emotions time.

Emotions sometimes have deeper meanings and sometimes they don’t. One of the best ways to tell the difference is to give yourself a moment to watch them and see what happens. The first thing you will notice if you can let emotions be is that they don’t last very long. In themselves, the bodily sensations often last about 90 seconds before resolving or changing to something else.

So, if you can pause for a few breaths, let your body settle, and give your brain a chance to catch up, you may understand better what your emotions are trying to tell you. If nothing else, you’ll be present for yourself in an authentic way and remember for a moment that you are a human being who is affected by the world and that’s not entirely a bad thing.

2. Give Your Emotions Space.

As you give your emotions time, it also helps to give them space. What I mean by this is a few things. First, don’t force a conclusion right away. Don’t immediately put your emotions under the microscope. Don’t demand an explanation. Remember that emotions are feelings and they are not necessarily logical, so don’t judge or add on extra baggage that doesn’t need to be there.

Second, it also means to let yourself expand around the emotions. Sometimes big emotions can feel overwhelming. In those times, I find the breath helpful as a tool to help me feel a sense of expansion as I make space for emotions. Strong emotions can also push us to contract around them, so the practice of allowing them to float (not pushing them away or reacting to them) is a way to honor our emotions while avoiding rash and potentially harmful actions.

Image from blog post sharing quote about mindfulness practice that says "meditation is not about being calm. It is about being as you are in any given moment."

3. Move to Release Your Emotions.

Meditation is excellent for some emotions, but I find movement more helpful for dealing with the energetic ones like anger, frustration, or nervousness. After years of practice, I can sense when I am too keyed up to meditate. In those situations, I take a walk, do a strenuous workout, or put my energy to good use by doing yard or housework.

The movement helps me to avoid ruminating about the situation and, even if I don’t get full clarity by the end of the activity, at least I did something good for myself or completed a chore. I also use this strategy when my calendar or case load give me reason to anticipate strong emotions. I make a point of working out before difficult depositions or important presentations.

Even if short, I take walks or do some stretching or yoga the weeks I am in trial. At their heart, emotions are sensations which is energy. Movement can make you feel physically better and discharge some of that extra energy, so it is a great response to emotional surges.

4. Share Your Emotions.

Lawyers sometimes must remind ourselves that we don’t have to handle everything on our own. As an introvert, this is true for me. When things are awkward, I tend hide them or try to fix them before anyone notices. Eventually I learned, though, that all the self-care strategies in the world are no match for the loved ones in my life.

The reason is that our emotions can easily get mixed up with shame. Sharing our experience with those we trust is the most effective way to counteract shame. In many cases, our loved ones or trained professionals can’t change the situation or even offer wise advice. They can, however, remind us that we aren’t alone and our feelings matter and that is valuable.

Image of blog post post author with quote that says "The healthy way to deal with emotions as a lawyer isn't treating them as a problem, but instead embracing them as a part of the human experience."

5. Care for Your Emotions.

The first few strategies emphasized some distance from one’s emotions to build stability in the midst of turbulence. Ultimately, though, practice with your emotions may reveal the truth that you can’t and shouldn’t try to become aloof from them.

One amazing thing I have seen repeatedly is that compassion emerges when we feel suffering, whether it is our own or someone else’s. This isn’t to say you should always take on suffering or never use strategies to help yourself get distance when needed. It is to say that feeling our emotions and treating them like they matter is essential.

This means being present for and accepting of ourselves even when our emotions are inconvenient, irrational, or uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean we always act based on our emotions, but it does require dropping the pretense that we can somehow rise above them.

Law practice is a rational, logical, and competitive. If we are honest, though, it’s also highly emotional, intuitive, and relationship based. Emotional intelligence is not merely about recognizing emotions in ourselves and others. Because of the toll that law practice can take on legal professionals, it is also essential to learn strategies to honor and care for our own emotions. This is not just true because it can help you maintain or improve solid performance at work, but also because you are a human being and your lived experience matters.

Image with quote from the blog post that says "Emotions help us remember that we are human beings affected by the world and that's not entirely a bad thing."

In short, the healthy way to deal with emotions as a lawyer isn’t treating your emotions as a problem, but instead embracing them as a part of the human experience. Coming from someone who used to struggle mightily with this, I know that this takes patience, trust, and effort but these strategies derived from mindfulness and compassion can help.

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Book Review: The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal

This month I am focusing on debunking myths relating to mindfulness, compassion, and mental health. After all my years of meditation, I still find myself holding onto a few myths every now and then. One of those myths is that stress is bad for you.

As a lawyer, I have been informally trained to know that stress is a scary thing. The lawyer mental health crisis tells me I have to “manage” my stress. Family, friends, and doctors will tell me to “limit” my stress. And even in my training to become a meditation, yoga, and compassion teacher, I learned that stress can impede us physically and mentally.

But, then I came upon a book by Kelly McGonigal with a title that proclaims that stress is good for me. Her book The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It seemed to fly in the face of everything I thought I knew. The thing is, though, that I adore Kelly McGonigal’s work.

She explains scientific concepts in a simple and engaging way that shows she really understands them. She does this so well that, in turn, I feel like I really understand the concepts too. I thoroughly enjoyed The Willpower Instinct and The Joy of Movement and, despite it being only in audio form, learned a ton from her course on compassion.

So, even though the title made me skeptical, I decided to give The Upside of Stress a try. Guess what? It totally changed my mind. And when I say “changed” I don’t mean that it made me suddenly welcome and enjoy all the stress in my life. Instead, it refined my understanding of what stress meant and how it actually worked.

Most of us know the “fight/flight/freeze” reaction as the stress response, as if it was the only response to stress. In Upside, however, McGonigal explains that this is only one possible response to stress and it usually occurs in dire threat situations. This is when stress can harm us physically, impede our performance, and even lead to bad behavior and aggression.

On the other hand, humans can respond to stress in other ways, including the “tend and befriend” or “challenge” responses. In other words, we can learn to care for and forge connections to deal with stress or see a stressful situation as a challenge that can present opportunities. When we respond to stress in these ways, research shows that it can improve performance, cause us to behave more ethically and collaboratively, and create courage, motivation, and energy.

Now, of course, the skeptics out there are likely to wonder why we hear so many dire warnings about stress if it is good for us. McGonigal acknowledges that stress can be bad, even devastating for some of us, but she explains that the popular discourse of stress is often misleading.

One thing that is often left out of these discussions is that our reactions to and mindset about stress can determine how it affects us. That is why so much of The Upside of Stress is devoted to changing the audience’s mind about stress, because just acknowledging that stress can have an upside is the first step to healthy stress management.

When I read this part of the book, I was ever more surprised because I realized I already knew it or had at least experienced it. I had not officially accepted the idea that stress could be good for me, but I had learned through meditation to respond to stress differently.

Rather than ignore, evade, or fight stress, I had learned to regard it as a normal part of life, to accept it as human, and to treat it with care. In other words, meditation had helped me more frequently invoke a challenge or tend-and-befriend response to stress. As McGonigal argues, it didn’t make the stress go away but it made it easier to bear.

If, like most lawyers, you want some help managing stress, consider checking out The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal. If the only thing it does is change your mind about stress, that alone could be enough to change your life for the better.

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