Writing as a health practice
Writing about distressing experiences is used as a way to explore emotions, cope with difficulties and consider possible solutions. Expressive writing, blogging and journaling offer different settings for this practice.
Expressive writing
Expressive writing means writing about traumatic or stressful events and is intended to help people cope with mental and physical injuries. A 2014 overview of web resources relayed claims that handwriting could aid learning and writing about emotions might speed healing or change perceptions and attitudes towards life.
The overview suggested that expressing emotions might help people adapt to post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain or sleep disorders and change how they felt. It also attributed positive effects on lung function in asthma and immune responses in HIV infection to a psychiatric review. Increased cognitive processing was one proposed explanation for expressive writing’s therapeutic use.
Blogging and journaling
The same overview described online expressive writing as potentially helpful and capable of creating a sense of support. It reported a study in which participants benefited from blogging about distress, with greater benefit when readers could respond. That finding was accompanied by a caution against sharing one’s innermost thoughts indiscriminately across social media.
Journaling involves keeping a diary of thoughts and emotions and may be used to gain self-knowledge, analyse problems and find suitable solutions.