Expressive Writing: Access to Stress Reduction and Better Health
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With the pandemic straining everyone’s sanity, this seems like a good time to share about expressive writing, which is a fantastic tool for reducing stress.
In the 1980s, James W. Pennebaker, then a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University, started researching the impact of this approach and discovered that simply writing about tumultuous emotional experiences helped undergraduate students achieve better health outcomes. Writing 15 minutes per day, 4 days in a row reduced their illnesses by 50 percent in the following 6 months. Since the first study was published, hundreds of additional studies have been conducted that show that this technique is highly effective for helping people achieve better outcomes regarding PTSD, phobias, asthma, arthritis, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, and many other conditions. At first glance, this may seem too good to be true, but researchers have concluded that the writing helps people to process emotions, which in turn reduces stress and leads to better health outcomes.
Here is the brief neuroscience explanation. Strong negative emotions generally trigger the amygdala (sometimes called the lizard brain). This is the fight or flight part of the brain which highjacks everything else and prevents us from thinking rationally. When we put emotional experiences into words, think them through, and put the experience into context, we process them through the pre-frontal cortex. This is a less reactive part of the brain which enables us to have more conscious control over our emotional states. Modern brain imaging technology actually shows the brain activity move from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex when a person is writing about an emotional experience. In contrast, when an emotionally difficult event remains stuck in the lizard brain, the person experiences a lot more stress than she does after the event has been moved to the thinking part of the brain.
Perhaps some of you are thinking, I already journal, so I’m all set. Maybe but expressive writing actually has a specific structure. Following is a summary of the exercise. For more information about this approach and the extensive research that supports it, you may wish to check out, “Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain” by James W. Pennebaker and Joshua M. Smyth.
What to Do
Choose an experience to write about. Good options include, any event about which you still have strong emotions, a situation where you felt out of control or helpless, or an emotionally significant event that has had significant long-term effects on your life.
Write about the experience for 15-20 minutes per day for four days in a row.
Write about the same event on all four days.
Write continuously without worrying about grammar, spelling or editing.
Write only for yourself. Be completely open with yourself to get the full benefit of expressive writing.
Logistics
Choose a place to write where you feel a sense of comfort and security. If writing at home, consider setting up your space a little differently than usual to help create ritual. For example, you might light a candle or bring pictures or objects of significance into your writing area. It is helpful to hand write, rather than using a computer, because it slows the process down and helps you to connect with your emotions.
The First Day
Write entirely from your perspective. You may include what happened, your deepest emotions and thoughts about it, how you see it as linking to the future, who you have been, who you would like to be, who you are now, etc.
The Second Day
Write about the same event, but write about it from the 10,000-foot perspective (like you are in an airplane). How does it fit into history, society, the economy, trends? You can write about any aspect of the situation but try to bring a larger perspective.
The Third Day
Write about the same event, but write it from the perspective of someone who you feel acted poorly (or even horribly) in the situation. You may include their thoughts and feelings about the situation, how it may have affected them, their reasons for the actions they took, etc.
The Fourth Day
Imagine you are 100 years old and looking back on your life. What lessons did you learn from the event or situation? How did you learn from it? How did it help you build character or become stronger, kinder, or more sensitive? In what ways did things actually turn out for the best?
Given the extremely positive results that come from doing this exercise, I think the main reason it isn’t used more often is that it is quite a high bar to make oneself sit down and actually do it. While this isn’t for everyone or for every situation, I think it’s helpful for people to know that there are powerful tools that are available, should they wish.
