Healing Through Writing

I love to do some closing on the passing year before the new one begins. I used to review my journals and write a summary statement, now I’d have to read my newsletters, blogs, and social media posts. But none of these are as personally useful as private journals. After reading the following passage I am considering some free writing over the next few days. It is one thing we could all do very easily that will prepare us for better physical and mental health in the New Year. Though replaying events in the head, ruminating, is not helpful, writing about what is most sensitive may free these thoughts from even silent repetition and ways we also unconsciously self-sabatoge.

The reading below is from James W. Pennebaker in The Secret Life of Pronouns. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011. pp.4-5

    “By way of background, my early career dealt with health, emotions, and the nature of traumatic experiences. In the early 1980’s, I stumbled on a finding that fascinated me. People who reported having terrible traumatic experience and  who kept the experience a secret had far more health problems than people who openly talked about their traumas. Why would keeping a secret be so toxic? More importantly, if you asked people to disclose emotionally powerful secrets, would their health improve? The answer, my students and I discovered, was yes.

    We began running experiments where people were asked to write about traumatic experiences for fifteen o twenty minutes a day for three or four consecutive days. Compared to people who were told to write about nonemotional topics, those who wrote about trauma evidenced improved physical health. Later studies found that emotional writing boosted immune system function, brought about drops in blood pressure, and reduced feelings of depression and elevated daily moods. Now, over twenty-five years after the first writing experiment, more than two hundred similar studies have been conducted all over the world. While the effects are often modest, the mere act of translating emotional upheavals into words is consistently associated with improvements in physical and mental health.

    IN SEARCH OF A THEORY TO EXPLAIN THE POWER OF WRITING

    Why does writing work? Some scientists suggest that repeatedly confronting painful emotions eventually lessens their impact–we adapt to them. Another group points to the unhealthy effects of rumination and unfinished business. Many people who have a traumatic experience keep replaying the events in their minds in a futile attempt to make sense of their suffering. The never-ending thoughts about their emotional upheavals can disrupt sleep and make it impossible o focus on their jobs and their relationships. Writing about trauma, according to this view, allows people to find meaning or understanding in events and help to resolve their emotional turmoil.

    The answer isn’t simple. I’m now convinced that when people write about traumatic events, several healthy changes occur simultaneously, including changes in thinking patterns, emotional responses, brain activity, sleep and health behaviors, and so forth. Discovering why writing is effective for one person may not explain why it works for someone else.”

Posted in consiousness | Comments Off on Healing Through Writing