These days, conversation around the importance of mental health is fairly prominent in the media, with a greater focus on what we can do to take care of our mental health and wellbeing, as well as our physical health. But taking care of our wellbeing doesn’t always require huge life changes, personal effort or great expense. Something as simple as writing can relieve stress, reduce anxiety, and help to ease feelings of depression.
This week, guest writer Vasy Kafidoff, co-founder and CEO at WritingMetier, delves into a wide range of benefits for supporting your mental health through writing.
Emotional, physical and mental health benefits
Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing were first introduced by American social psychologist James W. Pennebaker. However, since then a lot of studies have found that journaling for depression and anxiety can significantly help people around the world.
Below are 19 benefits that writing can have on your mental health.
1. A study by APA showed that writing can help to relieve stress by combatting negative and intrusive thoughts. The study explains that writing about negative experiences can help you to overcome them and that, by putting your experience into perspective, you are able to concentrate on the positive as a result.
Additionally, the study found that writing improves working memory, which can contribute hugely to preventing burnout.
2. Expressive journaling has been proven to help reduce depressive symptoms by bringing awareness and understanding to the illness.
Firstly, when you put your feelings on paper, they are easier to analyse. Secondly, writing about mental health struggles helps with understanding the patterns and trains of thought that might lead to a worsening mental state.
3. The benefits of journaling for stress management include decreasing emotional tension. When you feel overwhelmed at the thought of lots of tasks and problems, it can be hard to get your head around them. However, putting these down on paper provides a place for you to organise your thoughts, rather than having them as open tabs in your brain all the time.
4. Stress relief journaling can improve emotional intelligence. Often people struggle to find the words to explain how they feel, or what they think. However, a journaling exercise can help you to find the words. Over time, as you continue to practise, you may very well find this becomes easier.
As a result, this can enable you to understand your emotions better, and as such improve your emotional intelligence and empathy.
5. Journaling is often used in a range of theraputic practices and is a particularly popular exercise favoured by cognitive therapists, as it can help to overcome negative experiences by changing people’s perspective on situations.
When you write something down, you are able to read objectively and question all the false statements or judgements. With this in mind, through using the method of journaling, even long-term memories can become less intrusive.
6. In some cases, anxiety can be unbearable, especially when the reason behind feelings of anxiety aren’t clear to the individual. Writing about anxiety and what makes you anxious at work or in your personal life can give you helpful prompts that can lead to identifying what is truly worrying you.
7. The psychological benefits of writing include helping to clear your mind. By writing down on paper anything that comes to your mind, you are able to express your feelings and frustrations freely, productively and without judgement.
8. Journaling for anxiety and depression can also trace the triggers, track the state of mind, and help to prevent episodes from occuring. If you write every day and track your mood changes, it is easier to see when an episode might be approaching. This can give you time to take some preventative measures to support your mental wellbeing, before your feelings could potentially develop into something more serious.
9. Writing about uplifting things encourages you to concentrate and focus on positivity. For example, if you spend 15 minutes per day writing about a positive experience, this can influence your mood and your overall wellbeing.
10. One of the main advantages of journaling therapy for depression is that it is used to overcome traumatic events and help people experiencing PTSD symtoms. Additionally, journaling exercises are commonly used by therapists to help combat addiction.
11. Writing and gratitude journaling has shown to improve sleep as it provides you with an outlet to express thoughts and feelings before bed, rather than letting them occupy your mind overnight. Those who fill in gratitude diaries before going to bed can find that they sleep better and wake up more rested, according to psychological professors.
12. Journaling helps you to not only set goals, but contributes towards achieving them. Goals written down on paper are recognised as important by our brains, increasing the likelihood of you striving to achieve them.
13. According to research, journaling can contribute towards physical healing. The study showed individuals who have a habit of expressive writing found their wounds healed better and faster, and they were back to good health sooner than those who did not practise writing.
14. Journaling and stress are also connected to physical wellbeing and there is data showing that writing exercises boosts your immune system. So, if the root of your stress lies in physical health issues, writing can work towards improving them.
15. Expressive journaling can help with many health-related problems. In a study, writing was shown to improve lung functioning and reduce blood pressure. Additionally, those who practised journaling regularly were shown to have fewer doctor appointments than those who did not.
The same study showed writing about depression can be as effective as cognitive-behavioural therapy. As writing is much more accessible and affordable than seeking therapy, it can help those that do not have the opportunity to speak to a mental health professional.
16. Although journaling doesn’t necessarily cure depression, it shows a significant reduction in the impact of symptoms which helps individuals to deal with and manage the illness. People with clinical depression showed lower depression scores after only 3 days of expressive writing for 20 minutes.
17. Often individuals do not have time to stop and think about their day or week, which can lead to a higher emotional state, stress, and a build up of anxiety. Journaling for a bit every day can combat that by giving you the tools to regularly take time out for yourself and reflect.
18. Journaling can be used as a form of meditation, helping individuals to slow down, pause and take stock of their mental health. Taking the time to meditate through journaling can calm feelings of depression and anxiety.
Writing to nurture good mental health
Writing and depression, stress, or anxiety are connected. Using journaling to express your feelings has been proven to help people overcome traumatic events, reduce feelings of stress and emotional tension, and even boost our physical health. It also enables you to keep track of your mental state by showing mood and thought patterns, which is a helpful form of self-reflection.
All of these advantages together can help to enhance emotional intelligence and mental wellbeing long-term, encouraging you to become more self-aware, and combat negative behavioural patterns.
Vasy Kafidoff is co-founder and CEO at WritingMetier, a professional service that offers academic essay and thesis writing help. He strongly believes that mental health is one of the key factors in well-being and business success.