Writing has feel-good health benefits

Science supports the idea that writing has feel-good benefits, as Dr. Katherine Ramsland shows. The following are tips for using writing for those benefits:

Don’t just write, revise:

The process of writing and editing one’s personal narrative increases opportunities for personal reflection and life choices.

One study assigned insecure college freshmen at Duke University into control and experimental groups. In narratives, all had questioned their ability to keep up. The experimental group was exposed to information that they were not alone, including taped interviews with successful students who’d initially struggled. This provided an opportunity for the subjects to relate to others like themselves and reconsider their self-concept narratives. Compared to the control group, the students in the experimental group substantially improved their performance, both short- and long-term, and many more of them continued with their education. Revising makes us look at what we’ve stated and think about whether it’s what we really believe or want to say.

Use regular journal exercises to express your inner life:

James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, asked students to write for 15 minutes a day. They could choose an important personal issue or a superficial topic. The students who wrote about personal issues, Pennbaker discovered, had fewer illnesses and visits to the student health center. “I think of expressive writing as a life course correction,” he said. “When we translate an experience into language we essentially make the experience graspable.”

This kind of exercise, others have found, also improves emotional intelligence.

Use writing to actively engage with your life:

It can provide a blueprint for moving forward. Dr. Marian Diamond at the University of California at Berkeley found evidence to support the idea that the dorsolateral cortex, the brain’s planner, also communicates with the immune system. When she discovered that mice with a small DC did not produce immune cells, she tested an idea on humans. Several groups of women played contract bridge, a game that requires planning, strategy, and a good memory, while others passively listened to music. After an hour, those involved in the game showed increased immune cell production, but the music listeners received no such benefit.

As an activity, writing offers ways to think ahead and envision where you want to go, as well as describing the steps needed to get there.

Use writing to develop mental agility:

The ability to see things from many angles. For example, try writing about a common object like a rug in a unique new way. Then do another one. This exercise contributes to creativity, aha! moments, and mental resilience. While writing and revising, you generally search for new ways to say something, which calls on the brain’s association cortex.