Some tips for doing this:
What's great about this? You can spill it all out on
paper without having to disclose anything to anybody. (You
can even burn it afterwards!)
Write about your emotions, your insights, and about what
happened. Writing only about what happened is better than
not writing; writing about your emotions and insights OR
writing about your emotions and insights and what happened
provides greater benefit.
Be careful about getting 'theoretical.'
You can write four days in a row or every other or whatever
works for you -- keep it within a week.
You can write about the same experience or different
experiences during the course of the week.
You might feel a little on edge the next day or so but
generally folks felt better than before the exercise within a
week.
Health benefits resulted in fewer illnesses and doctors'
visits, and improved immune responses as well as relief from
rheumatoid arthritis, and were noticed even a year later.
How is this different from Dear Diary?
Depending upon how you write to 'Dear Diary' it might not be!
Part of the difference is that here you are diving in deep and
then stepping away from it.
How I found out about it
Several years ago I found a great book
in the clearance section: Emotional
Longevity: What REALLY Determines How Long You Live, by Dr.
Norman B. Anderson and P. Elizabeth Anderson. It has a ton
of great stuff in it!
In the fifth chapter, he talks about studies done by Dr. James
E. Pennebaker (back in 1983!) that connected writing about trauma
with true health benefits. Dr. Pennebaker has since written
a number of books including Writing
to Heal. |