Writing is a Tool to Heal

Talking about experiences which are difficult to overcome, eases the pain consumers may suffer when traumatized, yet research has been done which shows that expressing the self by other means can help the healing process of trauma not only mentally but physically as well.  This is expressing the emotions in word.  Its been understood that relinquishing the emotions of a traumatic experience may be consoling through writing because there is a calming effect when people are writing.

The study being done for the first time showed that, “writing about personally distressing events can speed wound healing in an older population that is at risk of poor healing”.How Writing Heals Wounds — Of Both the Mind and Body | TIME.com  This however is not the only time a connection has been understood between mental and physical health.  As I have written in the past a number of letters, I myself find that what I have written did have a calming effect on me, though I was not suffering from any experiences considered a trauma, I did find that I felt peaceful and that my relationships and thoughts were clearer of those I had been writing to. 

The terms in psychological health, it proved a bit more conflicting, as a recent study expressed that writing about disturbing events which happened to soldiers might improve relationships among those soldiers returning from war zones, while in another study those suffering from PTSD who wrote about their experiences found no consolation at all.  Yet, they did after putting their emotions in words, found that their mood improved and there were less stress hormones in those patients.

Writing it is said, helps the body by reducing stress and there is less anxiety, therefore lesser stress hormones which could interfere with the physical wound healing.  Emotional writing is not helpful for everyone.  In one particular study it was found when some people wrote about the worst parts of their trauma, their anxiety level increased and those people who are open emotionally, showed less worry.  All of this goes to show people have ways of coping which are different from others when engaged in a traumatic experience and that those who find solace by expressing those events find it by expressing their emotions through writing which has become an important tool to recovery to them of both the mind and physical body.

Written by Donald S