Personally, writing has always been a large part of my life. Beginning when I was in elementary school, I used to write stories of my characters in fantasy worlds or getting lost from family during natural disasters then finding them in the end. As I grew up, my fantasy stories turned into poems which expressed the pain and heartbreak of my early teenage years.
Now as an adult, I shifted back to using writing to tell stories about my life and reflect about significant events or people from my life. A common theme I noticed in my writing is that whenever something majorly devastating or impactful occurs in my life, I tend to immediately write it down and it becomes some of my most powerful writing to date.
I decided to look into this idea of writing being a form of healing because it has tremendously helped me on several occasions as an expressive outlet especially for negative feelings I might be having at the time.
In a study done in 1986 by James Pennebaker, he found when he asked students to write about their most traumatic life event, most would break down crying. There was this group of students who wrote about their trauma, then a control group which wrote about random writing topics. The group who wrote more about their negative experiences were found to go to the health center less than those who did not write about their ordeals.
Obviously, writing won’t cure your cold or your chronic disease. However, it was interesting to research about how it can have positive short-term effects. Pennebaker found that using a story to tell your feelings is somewhat better for the immune system.
(Courtesy of Harvard)
So, if you ever feel like writing down your feelings helps you…then chances are it does in some way. I highly encourage writing down your thoughts, feelings, or anything troubling as a way to maintain a more positive outlook on life.