While we are all stuck in our houses and busy stressing out, wouldn’t it be great if there was a quick way to improve your health with the tools you already have at home? There is, and it’s not just free weights. It’s free writing. If you have a pen and paper or a keyboard you have everything you need.
We have thirty years of social psychology and physiological data to prove that simple journaling can have an immediate positive impact on your mind and your body. Journaling for a short time a few days in a row has been proven to deliver major health benefits.
Here are just five of the many benefits from journaling:
- lower your blood pressure
- improve immune system functioning
- reduce stress-related visits to health centers
- improve a part of your brain called working memory
- reduce depressive symptoms before stressful tests
The research support for the effectiveness of what we call journaling came from the work of James Pennebaker at the University of Texas in the late 1980s. He wanted to find out if writing every day for a few days in a row would improve the health results of his participants. He posited that if participants went to medical clinics less often after the experiment, they must be healthier. In the first studies his subjects cut their medical visits in half compared to the control groups in the following six months.
Since then there have been many studies of expressive writing, and the list of benefits keeps getting longer. It works.
How do you use this powerful tool?
The simplest way works beautifully.
- Set out a quiet time for writing.
- Take out a pen, pencil, or keyboard.
- Set a clock for twenty minutes.
- Hit the timer and start writing.
This writing is only for you. It is a place you can keep your most intimate thoughts without sharing it with a soul. It’s a nice way to make even better friends with yourself.
The only rule is that you have to keep the pen moving along the page without stopping for twenty minutes. No thinking, no considering, absolutely no second-guessing.
Don’t have any idea what to write?
If so, try this: begin by writing the following sentence over and over until something changes:
“I don’t know what to write I don’t know what to write I don’t know what to write…”
Write for twenty minutes.
After you’ve written, ask yourself a few questions. Did you feel happy or unhappy doing the writing? Did the writing feel meaningful or useful? Can you describe how you feel the writing went?
Repeat this small journaling exercise for the next three days. Try to do it at the same time each day and do a quick review of the writing after each day.
When you look back at your writing you may find some surprises.
Many people notice that their handwriting gets larger and that they use more words in the same amount of time. Both these results show that you are getting more comfortable with writing and also with the thoughts that have come up.
Often people use more positive words after a few days. This is a great result, because it indicates that the writer is optimistic about dealing with life under these stressful circumstances.
Another surprising result? The more pronouns like “you” or “they” in the journal, the more positive the results. Using pronouns indicates that you are changing perspective to take into account the views and actions of other people. That, in turn, gives you a more balanced perspective on your own life.
Some people find that even when they started by just saying “I don’t know what to write” dozens of times, over the course of just four days, their journal begins to tell a story. The writer begins to connect cause and effect. We begin to look at why things happened and then how we can improve the situation.
We also get closer and closer to the real magic of writing for yourself. Writing stories builds hope, efficacy, and understanding, of ourselves and the world we live in. Writing stories is the magic elixir to a richer life for you and your loved ones.
You can start that beneficial change with nothing more than your pen, paper, and twenty minutes a day. What a great way to make use of bad times.
Ann Henry
Thank you, Samantha. I think writing of any kind can be very therapeutic. Journaling can certainly help to reduce stress and be beneficial to those who use it, especially during these difficult times. Your article is both timely and appreciated.
Pat Sabiston
Love this article. I actually teach this practice during Education Encore and Gulf Coast State College. Agree with ALL your points! Well done!
Jack Courtney
Thanks for the great post and for providing a reference to James Pennebaker’s work. I’ve too have found journaling beneficial and now I have a reference to point to when questioned. I checked and Pennebaker has a number of books available on the topic – thanks!