Post #9 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing and Healing – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
3 Tips for Enhancing Your Health through Writing
Sharon Lippincott
Twenty-five years have passed since 1986 when psychology professor James Pennebaker and his graduate assistant Sandra Beall published results of the first study disclosing physical health benefits associated with expressive writing. The purpose of that study was to compare the cathartic effects of writing about traumas with talking about them and check for physical health changes. Results were resoundingly positive. Writing works as well as talking, and often better. Writing is definitely good for your health!
Through the intervening years that initial study has been replicated over 200 times in locations around the world with populations of all ages and life circumstances. It’s been done in places like prisons, hospitals, health clinics and job search centers. More recent studies have varied the time people write, and some have had people write about positive experiences rather than traumatic or negative ones. Although there is variation in results for individual writers, on average, studies have shown significant improvements in health factors they measured.
These benefits have been both physical and emotional. Typical physical benefits include enhanced immune function, improved cardio-vascular function, fewer doctor visits, improved lung function for asthma suffers, decreased arthritis pain and symptoms, better sleep and decreased pain for cancer patients, improved liver function for heavy drinkers, and higher white cell levels in AIDS patients. Emotional benefits include increased happiness, sense of well-being, and satisfaction with life, decreased worry, anxiety and depression, more self-confidence, smoother relationships and better problem solving.
All of these studies have included some version of spontaneous, unstructured writing for a limited period of time. Although they are constantly cited in support of the healing power of journaling, none specifically explore the effects of regular writing. In fact, in his 2004 book, Writing to Heal: A guided journal for recovering from trauma & emotional upheaval
Now that the record is straight on empirical evidence, many of the factors found in this wealth of information point to ways you can adapt research findings to increase the likelihood of deriving more health benefits from journaling as well as structured forms of story, essay and memoir writing you may already be doing. Below are a few tips on reaping health benefits from your writing:
TIP 1: Freely express emotions and feelings. It’s important to acknowledge negative feelings, but it isn’t helpful to dwell on them. Frequent expression of positive emotion correlates positively with physical health indicators. Investing the time to eloquently describe your emotions with metaphor, similes and flowing words deepens your awareness and experience of them while also delighting readers.
TIP 2: Explore alternate points of view. We can’t ever state with certainty what someone else was thinking, but we can speculate. This exercise generally leads to insight and makes for juicy journal entries. Reflecting on alternate views in a memoir or essay can add intrigue and authenticity.
TIP 3: Search for insight, and develop a coherent narrative. Story is the basic operating system of our brains. It’s how we make sense of the world. We tell ourselves stories all the time, and developing insight and a coherent narrative is the key to freeing yourself from rumination, negative thought spirals, and obsessive thinking. And, as Women’s Memoir site followers surely know, developing and disclosing insight and narrative are a fundamental purpose for writing memoir. The studies show that even relatively minor amounts of insight and narrative can have significant health benefits. It seems only reasonable to assume that the effort invested in finding the larger story and all the associated insights involved in a memoir will pay even greater dividends for the writer and also grip the attention of readers.
The bottom line seems to be that dumping your heart into raw writing in the form of journaling or freewriting can pay a double dividend of improving your health while developing insight and morphing dark thoughts into light ones. Moving into the crafting phase of polishing insight and reflection into eloquent reading may deepen those benefits, keeping them fresh and vital and perhaps even spreading some to captivated readers.
So keep those fingers flying and write for the health of it!
P.S. Readers who are interested in learning more can check Dr. Pennebaker’s UT homesite and look for his earlier book, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions
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