Wondering if therapy is working? It’s not always easy to tell, especially since healing is often more gradual than dramatic.

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Plus, it depends on what you’re hoping to address in therapy, since learning to manage a chronic mental health condition will likely take more time than helping you navigate a stressful life transition.

But knowing where you are in your own healing journey should never be a guessing game, so feel free to check in with your provider if you want to chat about your progress. In the meantime, we asked mental health professionals to share the big, small, and sometimes surprising signs that therapy is working. Here’s what they suggest looking out for:

1. You bounce back more quickly.

Therapy won’t prevent challenging scenarios from popping up in your life, but it can change how you respond to them. Maybe you’ve noticed that something that used to derail your whole week now seems more manageable.

“One of the simplest signs therapy is working is how quickly you recover from things that have upset you,” says Robert Davies, M.D. a board-certified psychiatrist. “While the problem itself might continue to cause you some distress, there is less likelihood for the problems to ruin your day.”

As you build up your coping strategies and emotional regulation skills, you may realize that you’re more resilient to whatever life throws at you.

2. You can sit with difficult emotions.

Being able to tolerate discomfort is a good sign you’re making progress, says Monica Cwynar, a licensed clinical social worker at Thriveworks. “Rather than seeking immediate relief or ‘fixing’ a difficult emotion, you find yourself able to sit with feelings like sadness, anxiety, or anger without needing to suppress them, act on them, or spiral into self-judgment.”

Something you learn in therapy is how to experience hard emotions without being overwhelmed by them. “It represents a shift from being defined by your emotional state to being a curious observer of it,” Cwynar adds.

3. You’ve learned to pause before you react.

Therapy is great for helping you identify and interrupt any unhealthy patterns in your thinking and behavior. “You start noticing the gap between the thought and your reaction,” says Alyssa Scolari, a licensed professional counselor. “A subtle sign of progress is when you still get triggered, but you pause for just two seconds before reacting.”

This gives you a chance to react in a healthier way—maybe even draw on a coping skill—rather than falling into old patterns. “You suddenly realize, ‘I have a choice here’—and that is the moment your brain shifts from survival mode to active, conscious healing,” Scolari adds.

4. You’re actually OK with a little uncertainty.

Many people who struggle with anxiety or OCD have a low tolerance for uncertainty, which leads to constant rumination and reassurance seeking. You might ask your partner several times if they’re sure you locked the front door, or maybe you spend hours Googling your symptoms whenever something feels off.

If this is something you’ve been working on in therapy, progress might look like seeking reassurance less often, says Madeline Weinfeld Shill, a licensed clinical social worker. “Therapy can help people build self-confidence and also can build up tools and resources to better cope with the uncertainties of life, so that you can find yourself more comfortable existing without constant attempts at reassurance from others.”

5. You’re finally trying the coping skills your therapist recommended.

Your therapist likely started offering coping skills as early as the first few sessions, but it’s normal to have some hesitations at first. Maybe it seems silly to journal about your feelings or it seems unlikely that a grounding exercise can actually help you calm down when you’re panicking.

“When a client’s resistance finally stops, and they come in and exclaim, ‘I did it! I practiced such-and-such a skill, and it worked!’” that’s a big sign that progress is happening, says Jared Burkett-Edskerud, a licensed professional counselor associate at Thriveworks.

“It’s a win for the client as well as the clinician, because it reinforces the fact that what the therapist suggested is actually worthy advice,” Burkett-Edskerud says. It also shows that you’re integrating therapy insights into your everyday life, rather than treating it as a once-a-week healing appointment.

6. You’re getting back to things you used to enjoy.

“When my clients tell me they picked up an old hobby, joined a class, or connected with an old friend, it is often a sign they are breaking out of their old patterns,” says Caitlyn Oscarson, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

This can be a big sign of progress, particularly for people who struggle with depression or another mental health condition that impacts their quality of life. Even if you don’t feel fully like yourself again, engaging in activities that bring you meaning, fulfilment, and happiness is a win for your mental health.

7. You feel it in your body.

The mind-body connection is real. Many people struggling with chronic stress, anxiety, and depression experience physical symptoms that are otherwise not explained by a physical health concern. For those people, “you can tell therapy is working when your body settles down,” says Angela Schellenberg, a licensed mental health counselor.

“You might have fewer physical symptoms, that stomachache you had stops hurting, your eye stops twitching, there’s a visible somatic shift in your nervous system.”

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8. Things that used to feel hard don’t feel so hard anymore.

When you’re struggling with your mental health, even the simplest talk can sometimes feel insurmountable. “One subtle sign therapy is working is when a client gets genuinely excited about doing something small that used to feel hard—like saying, ‘Guess what?! I breathed today!’ says Caitlin Opland, a licensed clinical social worker at Thriveworks.

“It might be taking a breath before reacting, setting one boundary, noticing a thought without spiraling, or pausing before sending the text,” she adds. “Those little moments show that coping skills are starting to move from the therapy room into real life.”

9. You “hear” your therapist’s voice.

We don’t mean that you’ll literally start hearing voices, but patients will often start to think about their therapist’s guidance while they’re out living their lives. It’s a sign you’re retaining the lessons from therapy and actively applying them to new situations.

“Between sessions, the client may face a problem or a situation may arise in a relationship and they’ll ‘hear’ the therapist in their thoughts, or imagine what they might recommend,” says Ryan Howes, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist.

This is a phenomenon known as “internalizing” the therapist, Dr. Howes explains. “They sort of create a portable version of a therapist to take with them through the rest of their lives,” he adds. “Oftentimes this portable therapist is reassuring, encourages action, gives honest feedback, and is in your corner, just like the flesh and blood therapist.”

10. Your sleep improves.

Finally waking up feeling rested can be a sign therapy is working, says Jenny Liu, a licensed professional clinical counselor-supervisor. “This means you’re able to fall asleep easily, stay asleep, and your sleep is deep and restful,” she says. “It means you’re not staying up doom-scrolling, having anxious thoughts right before sleeping, and your dreams are not distressing.”

Plus, better sleep can in turn lead to better mental health, helping you manage your emotions and deal with everyday stress more easily.

11. Your sessions are starting to feel less urgent.

When you first started therapy, you might have been showing up in crisis mode every week, frantically trying to manage debilitating symptoms or heightened emotions.

A sign of progress is having “less urgent, on-fire stuff to talk about in therapy,” says Alli Spotts-De Lazzer, a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional clinical counselor. When this happens, it gives you a chance to dive into deeper patterns, beliefs, or goals that you couldn’t explore while you were focused on putting out immediate fire, Spotts-De Lazzer adds.

12. You’re less critical of yourself.

“A surprisingly good sign is when you start to have compassion for the parts of yourself that used to feel like problems,” says Elizabeth Bodett Dresser, a licensed clinical social worker. “That doesn’t mean that you don’t still want things to change, just that you can hold more compassion and understanding for yourself.”

Ideally, your inner critic is starting to quiet down and being replaced by a kinder, more helpful voice.

13. Something is missing (in a good way).

Sometimes progress is less about what you notice and more about what you don’t notice.

“It begins when you have an absence of something that felt like it was a part of you and your daily experience,” says Gary Dillon, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist. “Whether it’s anger, pain, anxiety, a lack of confidence, or resentment, one day you realize that they’ve been absent for some time and you can’t remember the last time you experienced it to the same degree or at all.”

That’s where the growth really begins. “As a result, you have more space for joy, hope, happiness, confidence, and grace for others and yourself,” he adds.

Want more unfiltered advice from therapists?

This article is part of our Clinician Confidential series, in which we collect useful tips and advice from a wide variety of experienced mental health professionals. Check out some of the other articles in the series here:

Responses have been edited for clarity.