What if one of the things that matters most to our health is something medicine can’t prescribe?
We can prevent disease, treat illness, manage symptoms, restore function, and help people live healthier lives. However, medicine has limits. It cannot tell us what makes life worth showing up for.
After years of practicing medicine, I have come to believe we don’t talk enough about how hope can influence the way we care for ourselves. We talk about nutrition, movement, sleep, and stress. We track steps, measure blood pressure, and watch numbers on laboratory reports. They are part of health, but they are not the whole of it.
Behind many of the choices we make for our health is a quieter question: Do I believe there is something ahead that is worth taking care of myself for?
That is where hope begins to matter.
Hope gives us a reason to imagine that the future can hold something meaningful, even when the present feels difficult. It can shape how we respond to setbacks, how willing we are to ask for help, and whether we believe our choices today can make a difference tomorrow. Think about what happens when you have something to look forward to. You may take better care of yourself because you want to be present for it. You may find a little more motivation to move your body, get enough rest, keep an appointment, or make a change you have been putting off.
Hope doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It doesn’t require certainty, optimism, or a perfectly mapped-out future. Sometimes, hope is simply the belief that there is still a reason to keep going, keep caring, and keep making room for what comes next.
As a physician, I want us to think about health in a way that leaves room for that question. Not just, “What can I do to live longer?” but also, “What am I hoping to be here for?” Because when we have something to live toward, taking care of ourselves can begin to feel less like a list of obligations and more like an investment in a life we still want to experience.
Hope Is Not the Same as Pretending
Hope has become tangled up with positivity. We tell people to “look on the bright side” or “stay positive,” sometimes at precisely the moments when life gives them very little to feel positive about. But real hope doesn’t require us to pretend. It does not deny the reality of what is happening. It is the belief that what is does not have to be all there will ever be.
You can be hopeful while feeling afraid. You can grieve while holding hope. You can receive an unwanted diagnosis and have hope.
Instead of asking ourselves to believe everything will be okay, perhaps the more useful question is: What is still possible from here?
That question is at the heart of hope.
Hope allows us to imagine a way forward even when the outcome is uncertain. We don’t have to know that things will get better to believe that what we do next can still matter.
Hope leaves room for us in the story. Sometimes it gives us a reason to take the next step.
What Does Hope Have to Do With Health?
A recent analysis combining the results of 22 studies found that higher levels of hope were associated with greater engagement in health-related behaviors. That doesn’t mean hope causes better health. Many other factors, including genetics, environment, access to care, and socioeconomic conditions, influence our health.
But these results do raise an interesting question: What is it about hope that may help us participate in our own care?
One of the most widely studied theories of hope offers a clue. Psychologist C. R. Snyder’s hope theory describes hope as more than simply believing things will turn out well. It involves having something to move toward, seeing possible ways to get there, and believing in our ability to act.
Wishing waits. Hope participates.
Caring for our health often looks surprisingly ordinary: keeping a medical appointment, taking medication consistently, moving our bodies, asking for help, or trying again after a setback. None of those actions guarantees an outcome. They ask us to care for our future selves before we ever meet them.
Sometimes We Have to Hope Differently
We often attach hope to an outcome. We hope the biopsy is negative. The treatment works. The relationship survives. That life goes back to the way it was.
Sometimes it does. But when it doesn’t, we may believe hope has failed us. Sometimes we have to hope differently.
Hope for a cure may become hope for comfort. Hope for the life you had may become hope for meaning in the life you have. Hope for certainty may become trust in your ability to navigate uncertainty.
Changing what we hope for is not the same as giving up. Sometimes it is how we make room for what is still possible.
The Practice of Hope
Hope can feel out of reach, especially when life feels uncertain. But practicing hope doesn’t have to be something big or life changing.
It begins with small shifts in how we think, who we turn to, and what we choose to do next.
That might mean focusing on what you can control, making room for support, or finding one thing each day that gives you a reason to keep going.
Hope is a practice because life will keep giving us reasons to lose it. The goal isn’t to feel hopeful every day, it’s to keep making space for hope when you need it most.
Be careful with absolute language. Words like never, always, nothing, and everything can make it easy to mistake how things feel right now for how they will always be. When you catch yourself thinking, this will never get better, try something more accurate: I don’t know what happens from here.
You aren’t forcing a positive outcome, you’re leaving room for what you don’t know yet.
Borrow hope when you need to.
There will be times when seeing what’s possible for yourself is difficult. Talk with someone who can see beyond the moment you are in, a friend, family member, physician, therapist, spiritual leader, or someone who has lived through something similar. Sometimes we need another person to remind us that the view from where we are standing isn’t the entire view.
Give yourself something to move toward. Start something. Plant something. Plan something you want to finish, experience, or become. Hope doesn’t always need a five-year plan. Sometimes it just needs a reason to look toward Friday.
Beyond Medicine
As a physician, I believe deeply in what medicine can do. I also know there are things medicine alone cannot do for us.
It cannot give us something to look forward to. It cannot decide what makes our lives meaningful. And it cannot tell us what makes tomorrow worth reaching for.
That part belongs to us. And that’s where hope matters.
