12/02/2022
WRITING TO HEAL
For years, therapists have used journals and other writing forms to help people heal from stresses and trauma. Now, new research suggests expressive writing may also offer physical benefits to people battling serious or life-threatening diseases.
Scientists are only beginning to understand how and why writing can benefit the immune system, and why some people appear to benefit more than others. It seems that the key to writing’s effectiveness is in the way people use it to interpret their experiences, right down to the words they choose. Venting emotions alone - whether through writing or talking - is not enough to relieve stress, and thereby improve health. To tap writing’s healing power, people must use it to better understand and learn from their emotions.
A groundbreaking study of writing’s physical effects appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the study, 107 asthma and rheumatoid arthritis patients wrote for 20 minutes on each of three consecutive days - 71 wrote about the most stressful event of their lives and the rest about the emotionally neutral subject of their daily plans.
Four months after the writing exercise, the 70 patients in the stressful-writing group showed improvement on objective, clinical evaluations compared with 37 of the control patients. In addition, those who wrote about stress improved more, and deteriorated less, than controls for both diseases.
In another study conducted in New Zealand, researchers found a similar pattern among HIV/AIDS patients in four 30-minute sessions to write about negative life experiences or about their daily schedules. Afterwards, patients who wrote about life experiences measured higher on CD4 lymphocyte counts - a gauge of immune-functioning - than did controls, though the boost to CD4 lymphocyte had disappeared three months later.
Researchers in the US split a group of volunteers into two groups. Again, one simply recorded what happened each day whilst the other was told to write about challenges and traumas in their lives as you would in a diary. Then all the study subjects were given a hepatitis vaccine and two booster shots.
According to blood tests, the group who journaled about upsetting experiences had higher antibodies right before the last dose and two months later. While the other group had a perfectly healthy response to the vaccine, the researchers wrote, “journaling could make an important difference for people who are immuno-compromised or for vaccines that don’t stimulate the immune system as well.”
A 2002 study also found that journaling can speed the recovery of those struggling with various psychiatric conditions. These are often accompanied by repetitive, intrusive thoughts that can be difficult to process. Journaling allows you to get those thoughts down on paper, process them effectively, and finally dispatch with them.
You can buy journals with all kinds of prompts and themes, but if you’d prefer to pave your own way, come up with your own prompts. Here are some ideas:
1. Make a list of 10 things you’re grateful for.
2. Identify the things that are making you feel overwhelmed.
3. What’s something you wish more people knew about you?
4. Write about a cherished moment with a childhood pet.
5. Create a list of what inspires you - music, people, books, websites, etc.
