Expressive Writing to Manage Stress and Anxiety
An effective method to calm yourself and deal with stressful situations in your life
Read time: 7 minutes
We all encounter periods of considerable stress. We might grapple with a relentless workload, difficult colleagues, financial worries, or home tensions. Often, we can handle these pressures. However, moments arise when the burden overwhelms us, leading to significant stress and anxiety.
As stress and anxiety mount, these intense feelings impede our ability to solve problems effectively. Instead of taking constructive action toward the problem, we ruminate, become paralyzed, or turn to distractions. Or we impulsively do the first thing that comes to mind, which is usually not the best course of action.
Adding to this challenge is the need for appropriate support. If we can find a supportive person, she may help ease our distress and guide us to solutions. However, we struggle to find someone suitable or hesitate to share our problems because of our problem’s sensitive nature. With these obstacles in place, what can help us manage our emotions and regain our resources? Expressive writing is the answer.
What Is Expressive Writing?
Expressive writing is one of the most effective methods to process and alleviate strong emotions related to stress and anxiety. This journaling method was first researched by James Pennebaker in 1986, and since then, numerous studies confirmed its effectiveness. It's a unique form of journaling where you write about your feelings and reactions to stressful events or interactions.
For this practice, you need to write continuously for 15 to 20 minutes each day, three to five days in a row, focusing on a specific stress-causing topic. You can stick to the same topic every day or explore related subjects that also cause stress. The key is to keep writing without pause and express your emotions without focusing on grammar or correctness. Also, these writings are private, meant only for you, and you don't have to share or keep them.
Next, I’ll outline the detailed steps to help you perform this exercise most effectively.
How to Do Expressive Writing?
For four days in a row, dedicate time to write about the situations currently causing you significant stress. Here are the exact steps to follow:
Find a time and place where you won’t be interrupted.
Select a topic that is currently causing you significant stress or anxiety.
Write continuously for at least 15 minutes, up to 30 minutes.
Once you begin writing, continue without pausing or overthinking your words. Allow the words to flow freely. Don’t worry about the spelling or the grammar.
As you write, describe your feelings about the stressful experience. Openly explore and express your emotions and thoughts in depth.
Look for patterns in your response to this particular stressor and compare them with your reactions to similar past events or people.
Once you’ve finished writing, feel free to keep the writings or throw them away. Then, take a short break to readjust before continuing your daily activities.
(Optional) Once you’ve completed four days of writing, if you decide to keep your notes, look for recurring common patterns and themes. Often, you’ll find a few key themes that can explain much of the distress in your life, making this analysis very insightful.
You usually feel relieved after your daily writing session, although you might also feel sad, angry, or in a low mood. This is a normal reaction to writing about intense emotions. Your emotions may intensify temporarily as a natural part of processing, but you will feel a sense of relief and clarity with time. The true impact of this exercise often becomes apparent by the third day, as you have enough time to process repeating themes and, as a result, discover logical action plans. You will feel less intense emotions when confronted with similar stressful situations.
Frequently Asked Questions on the Actual Writing Process
Can I use my computer? Do I have to write on paper?
You're free to use either paper or a computer, as studies have found no meaningful difference in effectiveness. Due to its slower pace, some suggest that writing by hand may aid in thought processing, but this advantage is minor. If typing is more convenient, enabling you to maintain daily writing, then use a computer. Prioritize convenience and remove any friction to continuing your writing.
Should I write for 15 minutes or longer? Can I write for less?
The critical aspect is dedicating sufficient time to tap into the emotions and thoughts beneath this event, which typically requires a minimum of 15 minutes, often more. Research has shown that writing length doesn't drastically affect efficacy if you explore your emotions deeply enough. Therefore, aim to write for at least 15 minutes, extending your session until you fully express your thoughts and feelings.
Do I have to write for four days? Can I write only once?
The effectiveness of expressive writing comes from understanding the reasons and narrative surrounding your feelings, which often requires more than a single session and reflection time between writings. Ideally, I recommend writing for four days, but it will still be beneficial even if you write only once. The more, the better.
Do I have to write on consecutive days?
Not strictly. If you write daily, remembering to write the next day and planning your session will be easier. But if you skip a day, it’s not a dealbreaker. You can resume the next day or even the day after. Studies compared schedules such as four days in a row or once a week over a month and found little difference in outcomes.
Should I write on the same topics, or can I change the topics?
Feel free to stick with one topic or switch to others as long as the new topic is connected to the overarching theme you're exploring. The key is to choose topics that hold emotional significance for you. The real value comes from expressing these emotions and understanding the reasons for your reactions.
How can I not stop writing? What are some ways?
Whenever you catch yourself pausing, push yourself to write down whatever thoughts surface without worrying about their direct relevance. When you continue writing, eventually, you will continue discovering significant insights.
Also, you can revisit the topics you’ve already covered. Many people hesitate to repeat subjects, but that hesitation interrupts your flow. Reexamining those topics reveals additional layers and insights.
Why Is Expressive Writing Effective?
The key benefit of expressive writing is that it calms your intense emotions and restores your mental clarity. When overwhelmed by stress or anxiety, your brain's prefrontal cortex, responsible for thinking and problem-solving, becomes less active. This is due to the body's fight-or-flight response, which diverts energy away from this energy-intensive, slow-operating brain region in favor of a quicker reaction. Expressive writing helps by calming this panic response and re-engaging your brain's problem-solving abilities since most situations that trigger strong emotional responses can't be resolved with immediate, reactionary thinking.
Another crucial benefit of expressive writing is its ability to shape a narrative around your reactions and generate valuable insights. Studies suggest that crafting a coherent narrative is essential for maximizing the benefits of expressive writing. When faced with difficult situations, we often lack the space to reflect and learn from them. This hinders our brains from forming positive connections about the event and transforming them into useful knowledge. Expressive writing provides a platform for dedicated reflection to analyze and integrate unprocessed experiences. This method encourages you to explore the event's details, emotions, connections between the event, past reactions, and how it might shape your future. This introspection unlocks a wealth of invaluable insights. As a result, you respond to similar situations with more composure and control, leading to more constructive actions.
Lastly, expressive writing fosters neuroplasticity. Andrew Huberman mentions that expressive writing enhances the coherence of an individual’s narrative about emotionally charged events. This coherence leads to greater honesty and truth-telling. Heightened honesty elevates activity levels in the critical areas of the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in emotional regulation. In addition, the act of writing about emotionally charged topics causes hormones, such as dopamine and epinephrine, to be released, which are necessary for triggering neuroplasticity. These hormones signal the brain about the importance of the learnings, thus making the brain ready for change. These new learnings and insights are integrated during deep sleep, and the prefrontal cortex activity is improved, strengthening the brain’s resilience to future emotional challenges.
Conclusion
After experiencing strong emotions, expressive writing acts as a simple yet potent method for emotional recovery, calming the mind and unlocking the brain's problem-solving capability. This process enables you to examine the event's details, your emotions, and their connections. As a result, it helps you develop a coherent story and meaningful insights so you can respond calmly and constructively. Additionally, it triggers neuroplasticity, ensuring these learnings solidify in the brain and you become more resilient in the future.
Appendix - To read more and learn deeper:
1. The book “Expressive Writing: Words that Heal” by James Pennebaker
Authored by James Pennebaker, the most distinguished researcher on expressive writing, this book dives deep into the method's health benefits and offers an easy-to-understand guide. Pennebaker also introduces variations to the technique, which helps you gain even more perspectives on the event you want to understand. I highly recommend the book if you find value in expressive writing and wish to explore it further.
2. Huberman’s Podcast Episode on Expressive Writing
In this episode, Andrew Huberman discusses how expressive writing enables short- and long-term neuroplasticity. In addition, he talks about the health benefits of the method and links the benefits to other vital functions such as sleep, immune function, etc. If you are interested in the neuroscience of this protocol, listen to this episode.
In their 2007 article, James Pennebaker and Cindy Chung summarize twenty years of expressive writing research, exploring aspects such as how long and how often one should write, the influence of different writing topics, and the choice of writing medium. Read this scientific article if you seek a deeper, scientific understanding of why expressive writing works and how to optimize its effects.
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