From the primitive sounds and gestures emitted by the Homo habilis to the complex languages developed by the Homo sapiensthe human being has the ability to bring to the outside everything that happens in his head through various sounds to which a meaning has been assigned.
Through language, we can talk about things that happened years ago, plan an event for a month from now, or simply communicate our feelings and concerns to a friend.
But this ability to externalize our thoughts is not limited only to language, but alsoand thanks to various technologies we can leave a record of our cognitions in the environment. From the cave paintings in which our Paleolithic ancestors represented their lives and customs, through the writing of books or this same article, to sending a WhatsApp message, the capacity for symbolic representation allows us to communicate our thoughts and that everything Anyone who has access to the means of presentation of these can come into contact with what we thought at that time.
The psychological effects of writing
But the effects of writing do not only go from us to the outside; It also has an impact on whoever writes. Apart from communicating, Writing also allows us to organize our thoughtsgoing from a chaotic flow in our mind to a linear structure on paper.
“Words make noise, they blur the paper and anyone can see and hear them. Instead, ideas are trapped inside the head of the person who thinks them. If we want to know what another person thinks, or talk to someone about the nature of thought, we have no choice but to use words.” (Pinker, 1994).
Related article: “Psychology gives you 6 tips to write better”
What effects can writing have on our health?
Regarding the title of this article, It seems that literally writing can help speed up the process of re-epithelialization of a wound. But not just any type of writing will do.
In a study at the University of Auckland, Koschwanez and his collaborators (2013) investigated how expressive writing would affect wound healing in people over 60 years of age, since this is the population group in which immune function is most affected. harmed The reduction in healing speed is usually associated with symptoms of stress and depression.
The expressive writing method usually consists of, on three consecutive days, the person must write for 20 minutes about the most traumatic experience they have sufferedplacing special emphasis on feelings, emotions and thoughts during this stressful event.
How was the study carried out?
To test their hypothesis, these researchers assigned the subjects to two conditions. On the one hand, some had to carry out this expressive writing procedure (intervention group) and, on the other hand, the control group had to write 20 minutes a day for three consecutive days about what they would do the next day, without referring to emotions or thoughts.
To measure healing capacity, two weeks after the first writing session, a 4-millimeter skin biopsy was performed on all participants. Throughout the 21 days after the biopsy, a dermatologist periodically examined the wounds, categorizing them as “healed” or “not healed,” with “healed” being understood as complete healing.
The results are very encouraging.
Regarding the results of the study, on day 11 after the biopsy, the number of people whose wounds had healed was already significantly higher for those who had written expressively about their emotions. 76% had completely healed their wounds compared to 42% of those who had written about their daily plans.
Previously, on day 7, a difference began to be observed, with 27% healing in the expressive writing group compared to 10% in the control group. The authors hypothesize that these results are due to the fact that expressive writing favors the cognitive processing of traumatic events, perceiving the event from another perspective and reducing the stress it causes. This reduction in stress would produce positive effects on the immune system, which would favor processes such as, for example, wound healing.
These results support other studies in which high levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress, have been found to play a negative role in the speed of healing. This beneficial effect of expressive writing has also been seen in other pathologies whose symptoms are, in part, modulated by stress, such as AIDS (Petrie et al., 2004) and moderate asthma (Smith et al., 2015).
What effects can expressive writing have on our mental health?
Focusing on the psychological effects of expressive writing, numerous studies have investigated its benefits in both normative populations and those at risk of suffering from a disorder. For example, Krpan and his collaborators (2013) wanted to measure the effectiveness of expressive writing as a complement to other interventions in people diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, according to the DSM-IV.
The study procedure was the same as mentioned above, participants in the intervention group would write 20 minutes a day for three days about their deepest feelings regarding a traumatic event. Participants were administered a series of questionnaires and cognitive measures before the intervention, one day after finishing the intervention, and four weeks later. Among these assessment systems was the Beck Depression Inventory.
Regarding the results that were obtained, one day after finishing the intervention, The reduction in depressive symptoms was already significantly greater in those who had written about their feelingsemotions and thoughts compared to the measurement before starting the experiment and, also, compared to those who wrote about their future activities. This reduction was maintained when the participants were re-evaluated four weeks after the intervention, even obtaining subclinical scores.
What psychological processes explain these benefits?
After a series of studies, Park, Ayduk, and Kross (2016) discovered that when people write about these traumatic events, what they do is alter the perspective from which they see the problem, that is, changes the way they cognitively represent the event.
According to these authors, at first, when someone analyzes a negative event, they experience it again through their eyes, that is, the person who analyzes the event is the same person who tries to reason internally about it. Therefore, putting feelings, emotions and thoughts on paper would cause us to adopt a perspective of the problem from a more distant point. That is to say, we would go from reliving the experience in first person to remembering it as something foreign to ussimilar to how we would watch a movie or as if we read a story that happened to another.
By being able to perceive the context of the negative event in a broader way, those affected can construct a narrative about it, giving it meaning and giving it a series of different explanations. All of these processes would reduce the aversiveness of the memory, allowing, according to Park and his collaborators (2016), less emotional and physiological reactivity. These effects would lead to an improvement in mental and physical health, and thus in quality of life.
A promising tool
In conclusion, due to the low economic and time cost that this activity requires, it should be taken into account as a possible alternative and complement when facing events that affect us emotionally.
Just as we turn to our closest environment when a problem happens and we want to feel their support, a paper and a pen could also serve as a support method in difficult times.
Bibliographic references:
- Smith, H., Jones, C., Hankins, M., Field, A., Theadom, A., Bowskill, R., Horne, Rob. & Frew, A.J. (2015). The effects of expressive writing on lung function, quality of life, medication use, and symptoms in adults with asthma: A randomized controlled trial. Psychosomatic medicine, 77(4), 429-437.
