As a therapist, you’re possibly already carrying a long list of wellness recommendations – both for your clients and for yourself: drink more water, limit screen time, get outside, reach out to friends, stay current on your notes. It’s a lot.

While it may feel like just another item on your to-do list, there’s one small shift that may offer a bigger return than you might expect: cooking dinner at home, a few nights a week. Here’s what we know: regularly cooking a nutritionally dense dinner at home has tangible benefits. People who cook more meals at home consume fewer calories, more nutrients, and less added sugar and saturated fat than those who eat out frequently. It saves money, and can improve your physical health, and naturally create time to connect with loved ones. 

Especially in the context of a therapist’s unique workday, cooking can become more than meal preparation: it can serve as a grounding ritual, a tool for decompression, and a meaningful way to care for both body and mind.

It’s a Transition Ritual Between Work and Life

For many therapists (particularly those in private practice, hybrid work, or virtual settings) the end of the workday can feel blurry. The final client signs off, there are unanswered emails in your inbox, and there is often no distinct moment that separates the professional self from the personal one.

This is where cooking becomes surprisingly powerful. When we step into the kitchen, we’re not just preparing food – we’re signaling to our nervous system that the clinical part of the day is complete. 

This ritualized shift – away from our desks, and into our bodies – can foster emotion regulation and cognitive rest. Activities like chopping, stirring, or assembling a meal require a different kind of attention: one that is tactile, rhythmic, and often meditative. When you chop garlic, your brain gets a chance to stop solving. When you stir something warm, your nervous system recalibrates. The clinical part of you begins to dissolve into the background—and your personal life comes forward again.

We encourage clients to build transition rituals into their lives. This is ours.

It’s Nutritionally Better—Even When It’s Simple

Most of us already know that nutrition impacts mental health. But knowing something and living it are two different things – especially at the end of an emotionally demanding day.

When you eat meals cooked at home – even ones that involve frozen vegetables and canned beans – you eat more fiber, fewer preservatives, and lower levels of sodium and sugar. A study published in International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity found that people who cooked at home five or more days a week consumed significantly more fruits and vegetables and had a 28% lower risk of being overweight compared to those who cooked fewer than three times a week.

Cooking doesn’t need to be fussy to be effective. Even simple dinners like roasted vegetables, a cooked grain, a protein source, and a ready-made sauce tend to be more nutritionally sound than most takeout options. Perhaps more importantly, they support sustained energy, stable blood sugar, and improved sleep—each of which plays a key role in how we show up the next day.

Cooking for yourself isn’t about discipline. It’s about giving your body the conditions it needs to support your mind—so that you can keep showing up, day after day.

It’s Money Saving —and Reduces Decision Fatigue

Here’s something else we don’t talk about enough: therapists are underpaid and overextended. Whether you’re navigating insurance panels, working in community mental health, or managing the financial ebb and flow of private practice, money stress is real.

And eating out is expensive. The average cost of takeout, once service fees and tips are added, can easily exceed $20 per meal (just for one person). Multiply that by just three meals a week, and it adds up to over $3,000 annually. That’s a considerable cost—especially when compared to the relative affordability of cooking at home.

But it’s not just about the money. It’s about decision fatigue. What to order, when it will arrive, how to make it feel worth it—those little frictions erode your already-depleted attention.

When you cook at home, even simple, repeatable meals, you take the ambiguity out of dinner. You make fewer decisions and spend less money. You also start to create a rhythm: you know what you have, what you like, and what makes you feel full and well.

It’s a Way to Connect with Loved Ones

While therapy is an inherently relational profession, the work is often isolating. Clinicians spend the day in emotionally intense conversations, and many work solo. By the time the last session ends, reaching out or connecting with others can feel daunting.

Cooking can help bridge that gap. When you cook with your partner, friend, or child, you’re co-creating something tangible. You talk about your day while you rinse lettuce or watch pasta boil. You laugh. You say things you wouldn’t say in a text. You’re in your body. You’re doing something with, not just next to, someone else. Side-by-side food preparation often invites more natural, relaxed conversation. It creates a shared task that can replace the default of parallel scrolling or eating in silence.

Even if you live alone, cooking can still be a meaningful act of connection – to yourself, to your culture, or to a broader community. You might share a photo of your meal in a group chat, trade recipes with colleagues, or eat while watching the same show as your long-distance best friend. It’s a way to bring a social element back into your daily routine.

It’s Not About the Perfect Meal. It’s About the Ritual.

Resisting all-or-nothing thinking, especially when it comes to self-care, can feel like a challenge. If a dinner isn’t healthy, fast, affordable, and beautiful, it can feel like a failure. But this kind of pressure often prevents us from cooking altogether.

A more helpful way of thinking is to aim for “good enough.” That might look like a frozen stir-fry kit, scrambled eggs and toast, or a batch of soup that stretches across several meals. When we release the pressure to get it right, cooking becomes less stressful and more sustainable.

Here’s a simple approach to try:

• Shop once per week: Stock up on versatile ingredients like greens, grains, legumes, and sauces.
• Prep twice: Set aside time to chop or roast in bulk, perhaps while listening to a podcast.
• Cook three times: Prepare three core meals and rely on leftovers the rest of the week.

You don’t need a full plan. You just need a starting point. These small shifts create a structure that supports—not overwhelms—your life and your practice.

Cooking Dinner Is A Way Back to Yourself

Ultimately, cooking isn’t just about health, savings, connection or productivity. It’s about restoration.

Cooking—even when it’s basic—can support your work, your body, and your brain. It can help you metabolize the intensity of your days. It can carve out just enough space to hear yourself again. It can be the time to bond with friends and family every day, and it might even become something you look forward to, not because it’s virtuous, but because it feels good. 

In a profession where we routinely extend care to others, preparing a meal for yourself becomes a tangible expression of self-compassion. It’s a way to regulate your nervous system, nurture your body, and gently close the door on your workday.

Because the truth is, our capacity to hold space for others is directly tied to how we care for ourselves. And sometimes, that care starts with lighting the stove.