Dr. Susan Roets

15/06/2026

People sometimes ask why they should forgive someone who never apologized.
The answer often surprises them.

Forgiveness is rarely for the other person. It tends to be for you.
Research consistently shows that holding onto resentment and hostility is linked to higher stress and lower wellbeing, and chronic hostility has been associated with worse heart health, while letting go tends to be associated with the opposite.

Carrying a grudge can keep your body in a low, simmering state of stress, replaying an old wound long after the moment has passed.

Your nervous system often struggles to tell the difference between the original hurt and the memory of it.

So each time you relive it, your body pays again.
Forgiveness does not mean excusing what happened or letting anyone back in. It means putting down the weight you have been carrying on their behalf.

In my experience, old anger can quietly weigh on people for years, showing up in their stress, their sleep, and their sense of peace.

Letting go is not for the person who hurt you. It is for you. People who finally release a long-held resentment often describe feeling lighter than they have in years.

Whatever you are carrying, you are allowed to set it down.
What is one heavy thing you have been carrying that it might be time to release?

12/06/2026

For decades, scientists believed the adult brain was fixed, that whatever capacity you had was locked in. We now know that's wrong. Every time you learn something new, you physically rewire your brain's hardware. Your ability to learn isn't a fixed trait. It's a skill you can sharpen.

The problem is that most of us were never taught how to actually learn. We highlight, we re-read, we cram, and then we forget. None of it works, because none of it matches how the brain stores knowledge.

There's a simple system that does. Three phases: Map, Apply, Preserve.

Map comes first. Before diving into details, survey the landscape. Skim the headings, glance at the diagrams, build a rough mental frame. You're assembling the edges of the puzzle before hunting for the middle pieces.

Apply is where the real learning happens, and it's supposed to feel hard. Instead of re-reading, close the book and force yourself to recall. Explain the idea out loud in plain words, like you're teaching a ten-year-old. If it feels easy, you're not learning.

Preserve beats the forgetting curve. Don't cram. Review a day later, a few days later, a week later. Spacing it out is what tells your brain to keep the file.

Map, Apply, Preserve. Use it on anything, a language, a new skill at work, a book you actually want to remember.

This is the finale of a five-part Mini Medical School series on the learning brain.

Read it below 👇️

Share this with someone who wants to learn something new this year and make it stick.

11/06/2026

You notice it during hard weeks. Your shoulders creep toward your ears. Your jaw tightens. Your lower back aches. And you wonder why emotional stress shows up as physical pain.

The connection is real and well documented.

When you experience stress, your body activates its fight-or-flight response, which includes muscle tension as a protective reflex. In short bursts, this is harmless. But under chronic stress, muscles can stay subtly contracted for long periods, leading to tension, stiffness, and pain, especially in the neck, shoulders, and back.

Research on the relationship between psychological stress and musculoskeletal pain has found that higher stress levels are associated with increased muscle tension and a greater likelihood of chronic back and neck pain. Modern pain science also recognizes that stress and emotional state can amplify how the brain processes and perceives pain.

This does not mean the pain is imaginary. It means the pain is genuinely influenced by your nervous system's state.

As a physician, this is why I address stress as part of treating chronic pain, not as an afterthought. Calming the nervous system, through breathing, movement, and rest, often eases the physical tension that pain feeds on.

Your body and mind are not separate. Your back may be carrying more than physical weight.

When your body aches, could you also check in with how much stress you have been carrying?

11/06/2026

If you struggle to fall asleep, the temperature of your body and your room may matter more than you realize.

Your body's core temperature naturally drops as part of the process of falling asleep. This cooling is a key signal that tells your brain it is time to rest. Research on sleep physiology shows that this drop in core temperature is closely tied to the onset of sleep and the quality of the sleep that follows.

This is why a cool bedroom tends to promote better sleep than a warm one, and why many people sleep poorly when they are too hot. It is also why a warm bath or shower before bed can paradoxically help you sleep: it draws blood to the surface of your skin, and as you cool down afterward, your core temperature drops, mimicking the natural pre-sleep signal.

Studies have found that a slightly cool sleeping environment is associated with better, deeper sleep, while overly warm rooms disrupt it.

As a physician, I often find that people troubleshoot their sleep by adjusting everything except temperature. Yet this simple factor can make a profound difference.

Cool your room. Use lighter bedding. Try a warm bath an hour or two before bed and let the cool-down do its work.

Your body knows how to fall asleep. Sometimes it just needs you to help it cool down.

Could you make your sleeping environment a little cooler tonight and see how you sleep?

11/06/2026

You bought the blackout curtains. You quit caffeine at noon. You drink the chamomile tea, you do the yoga. And at 3 AM you are still staring at the ceiling, heart pounding.

Meanwhile your friend drinks espresso at dinner, scrolls in bed, and is asleep in ten minutes.

Here is the twist researchers now understand. Chronic insomnia is usually not a lack of sleep. It is an excess of wakefulness. The problem is not that your brain forgot how to sleep. It is that your body has gotten too good at being awake. People with chronic insomnia run higher heart rates, temperatures, and stress hormones around the clock, not just at night. Tired but wired.

And this is the part that stings. The things you do to fix it are often what lock it in. Sleeping in to catch up. Napping. Going to bed two hours early and lying there frustrated. Every extra hour spent awake in bed quietly teaches your brain that bed means anxiety, not rest.

The counterintuitive fix is to stop chasing sleep. If you are awake more than about 15 minutes, get up and leave the room until your eyes are heavy. Wake at the same time every single day, even after a terrible night. Make the bed boring again. You build up sleep hunger until sleep simply catches you.

You cannot force sleep any more than you can force yourself to fall in love. You can only set the stage.

The full protocol below 👇️

Share this with someone who is trying way too hard to sleep.

08/06/2026

Touch a hot stove and you learn the lesson once. Your brain says: avoid that.

But take a drink after a stressful day, and your brain says something different: remember that.

That's addiction's cruel inversion of learning. The same system that kept your ancestors alive by remembering where the berries grew now remembers that alcohol quieted the anxiety, that ni****ne steadied the hands, that the snack erased the loneliness. The brain can't tell the difference between what's necessary and what's novel. It just learns faster than it can unlearn.

Dopamine isn't a pleasure chemical. It's a teacher. It stamps an experience with a note: this matters, do it again. Ni****ne, alcohol, and ultra-processed food trigger that signal far more powerfully than anything nature designed us to enjoy. Each repetition deepens the groove until the behavior feels automatic. Comfort mistaken for safety.

Over time, the wanting grows louder even as the liking fades. Brain imaging shows the alarm center and the body's feeling center firing as if survival depends on the next drink. Meanwhile, the part that reasons and resists goes quiet. The brain stops asking "do I enjoy this?" and starts insisting "I need this to stay alive."

That's not weakness. That's a brilliant learning system turned against itself.

And here's what changes the story: the brain that learned addiction can unlearn it. Every craving that passes without action is a new data point. Medication turns down the volume. Mindfulness changes the station. Behavioral tools rewire the daily cues. Layer them together and recovery stops being a fight. It becomes retraining.

If you're reaching for something right now, pause. Ask what your brain is actually asking for underneath the craving: rest, connection, safety, or belonging. Then reach for the thing that actually meets that need.

That's how the loop unravels. That's how healing becomes a habit.

I wrote a full article on the neuroscience of addiction, why quitting feels impossible and why it isn't, how medication and mindfulness work better together, and a Unlearning the Loop worksheet.

Read it below 👇️

06/06/2026

Music is one of the most powerful experiences available to a human being. And brain science is finally revealing why.

When you listen to music you love, it does not activate just one small region of your brain. Research using brain imaging has shown that music engages a remarkably broad network: areas for hearing, movement, emotion, memory, reward, and even the regions that release dopamine, the same chemical involved in other deep pleasures.

This is part of why music can move us to tears, transport us to a memory from decades ago, or make us want to dance without deciding to. It reaches the most ancient and emotional parts of the brain.

Studies have found that music can reduce anxiety before surgery, lower cortisol, ease pain perception, and even help people with neurological conditions recover movement and speech. Music therapy is now a recognized clinical tool.

As a physician, I find it beautiful that something so freely available, so woven into every human culture across history, has such measurable healing power.

You do not need a prescription for this one. You just need to press play on something that stirs your soul.

Music is not just entertainment. It is one of the most accessible ways to shift your entire nervous system.

What is one song that reliably lifts your spirit, and could you listen to it today?

05/06/2026

So true…

Hope can feel like wishful thinking. But the science of expectation reveals it is anything but soft.

Research on the placebo effect, one of the most studied and astonishing phenomena in medicine, shows that the expectation of healing can produce real, measurable physiological changes in the body. When people believe a treatment will help, their brains can release natural painkillers, alter immune responses, and change activity in regions involved in pain, mood, and stress.

This does not mean illness is imaginary or that hope alone cures disease. It means that your beliefs and expectations are genuine biological inputs. The brain that expects relief sets in motion processes that can contribute to it.

Studies have shown placebo responses involving the release of the body's own opioids and dopamine, demonstrating that expectation engages the same healing pathways as some medications.

As a physician, I find this deeply meaningful. It means that how we frame our situation, the stories we tell ourselves about our capacity to heal, are not irrelevant. They are part of the biology of recovery.

Hope is not a denial of reality. It is a force that helps mobilize your body's own resources. Cultivating realistic hope, alongside good medical care, is part of healing.

What you expect can shape what unfolds.

In whatever you are facing right now, what is one reason for realistic hope you could hold onto today?

02/06/2026

How a quiet mental habit changes the way your body handles stress, illness, and everyday life