HOW TO PRACTICE EXPRESSIVE WRITING:

Set aside time, alone. Turn off your phone. Don’t look at e-mail or social media. Expressive writing doesn’t work well with a lot of interruptions or distractions.

Think short-term. This is not journaling. Your aim is to write for 15 to 20 minutes daily for three days.

Pick your medium. Using pen and paper is nice because it slows you down to the pace of your own handwriting. But research shows that using a computer or even recording your voice works too. “The secret sauce is in the translation of thoughts and feelings into language,” says Joshua Smyth, PHD, professor of biobehavioral health and medicine at Pennsylvania State University.

Choose a topic. What is bothering you most? Is it something you can’t talk to anyone else about? Expressive writing is perfect for this.

Let sleeping dogs lie. Don’t ruminate over something you weren’t troubled by to begin with. Expressive writing is meant for the topics you still need to process.

Make the connections. Explore your deepest thoughts and feelings. Pick a topic that is worrying you and explore why it happened, how it is related to other things in your life, and why it is bothering you now.

Give yourself advice. What recommendations would you give to a friend with a similar issue?

Don’t limit yourself. If your original topic leads you to another one, that’s fine. “This is a meaningmaking process,” says Smyth. “It might take some writing to get to what is really most essential.” And it’s OK if you feel bad at first. This is normal if you’re focusing on a negative event.

Don’t share. Our writing changes when we know others are going to read it. Your goal is to be honest with yourself.

Power through. If you get stuck, just keep going. Smyth suggests writing the last sentence you wrote over and over until you get unstuck.

Move on. If you find it doesn’t help after three days, try something else.