The High Holy Days and Penitential Period are upon us, marking the beginning of the Jewish New Year, highlighted by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement. As a practicing psychiatrist for more than a half century who has always emphasized a holistic approach to treatment, I can tell you that atoning is good for your health.
Those who’ve been through Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous know that Steps 8 and 9 of their 12-Step Programs are about taking responsibility and making amends. But the nature of atonement in the Jewish religion goes farther than that. Instead of just admitting and apologizing for your transgressions, you are trying to heal a fractured relationship to the betterment of the person you wronged, as well as yourself.
The concept for my book “The Myth of Aging” was to create an encyclopedic collection of information vital to physical, mental and emotional health, something that doesn’t currently exist in a single volume. The concept of atonement is covered extensively in any number of the book’s chapters, thanks to the notion of the need to accept responsibility for one’s past behaviors in order to change and improve them. The Hebrew term Teshuvah, after all, means repentance, something a person must do in order to atone and then start the year fresh. So, as our Day of Atonement approaches, let’s look at the prescriptions for why taking ownership of actions that may have done harm to others is important for your overall well-being.
Lift the burden: Mistreating someone in any shape or form can lead to guilt, remorse and even shame, any combination of which can become a heavy burden. You can end up doing more damage to yourself than the person you wronged. Atoning for that action is the surest way to address any harm you have caused which may well have resulted in harm boomeranging back upon you. Making things right removes that weight from your shoulders.
Forgive yourself: Taking the proper steps to atone for a wrong you have done that has adversely affected another human being is the surest way to forgive yourself. You can’t do that until you acknowledge and rectify your action. In the process you are retraining your psyche not to repeat the same kind of behavior in the future, strengthening your own self-respect and allowing you to recognize the person who stares back in the mirror.
Become a better version of you: Having the courage to admit you were wrong and atone helps you move forward from a personal development standpoint. We may stop growing physically, so to speak, but we never stop growing emotionally. Doing wrong is the surest way to stunt your emotional growth which has dire ramifications for your happiness and self-fulfillment. Alternatively, you can enhance both of those by ensuring that your personal growth remains unencumbered by behavioral indiscretions.
Reduce anxiety and depression: Carrying guilt and regret is a recipe for encouraging anxiety and depression. I never prescribe antidepressants in my practice, because they only mask the underlying causation. So often that causation lies in the need to atone for bad acts going back any number of years. My prescription for these patients, instead of drugs, is to take ownership of what they’ve done by repairing the damage inflicted on others and, thus, themselves.
Relationship building: Bad acts committed against another can sever a long-time relationship or friendship. If life is currency, then our friends and loved ones are the bills with the highest denomination, and should be treated that way. Nothing is more detrimental to your mental and emotional health than burning bridges, instead of building them. But take solace in the fact you can do everything in your power to rebuild them through atonement.
Practice empathy: In my practice over the years, I’ve probably asked some version of the question “How did that make you feel?” more than any other. When a patient admits something they did continues to fester inside them, I offer the prescription of feeling empathy, to ask themselves how they would feel if someone had done to them what they did to someone else. It’s a kind of role playing exercise, and the point of it is to motivate them to take corrective action as a result.
Set an example: The fact that “treat others the way you want to be treated” is a cliché makes it no less important to practice. The same holds true for “be the adult in the room.” So many sins committed against others often feel juvenile in nature. I have asked patients to stand outside themselves to gauge how others see them. I fully believe we are at our best when we act as if the whole world was watching and seek to set an example to be emulated instead of reviled. I can’t help you fix yourself until you fix what you’ve done to someone else.
Which brings me to the physical toll the need to atone can have on you comes in.
“Whether it’s a simple spat with your spouse or long-held resentment toward a family member or friend, unresolved conflict can go deeper than you may realize — it may be affecting your physical health,” an article on the Johns Hopkins Medicine website has reported. “The good news: Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. And research points to an increase in the forgiveness-health connection as you age.”
Your heart will thank you for making proper amends and so will your immune system. Atonement can’t change what you’ve done, but it can reduce the adverse physical effects caused by holding the guilt and regret in. I have had innumerable patients over the years who come to me riddled by physical maladies as much as psychological ones. And, often, helping them deal with what’s plaguing their minds has a demonstrative effect on. healing their bodies.
When I sat down to write “The Myth of Aging,” I searched out the most common stressors and offered curated prescriptions for how to deal with over 40 of them in everyday life, including the need for atonement. In that respect, the only thing I can advise beyond not committing a sin against man in the first place is to atone for it as quickly as possible. With the Day of Atonement nearly upon us, this is the perfect time to make that commitment and spend every day as if it were the first of the New Year.
Dr. Arnold Gilberg’s book THE MYTH OF AGING: A Prescription for Emotional and Physical Well-Being will be published on Jan. 13, 2026 by Post Hill Press. It is available for preorder now.
