The Conversation
Edition:
Available editions
Africa
Job Board
Become an author
Sign up as a reader
Sign in
The Conversation
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Arts + Culture
Business + Economy
Education
Environment + Energy
Health + Medicine
Politics + Society
Science + Technology
In French
To reduce stress and anxiety, write your happy thoughts down
July 12, 2018 10.37am SAST
A. and I. Kruk/Shutterstock.com
Author
Michael Smith
Associate Professor of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Disclosure statement
Michael Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
Northumbria University, Newcastle
Northumbria University, Newcastle provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
The Conversation is funded by Barclays Africa and eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Western Cape, the African Population and Health Research Centre and the Nigerian Academy of Science. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Strategic Partner. more
Republish this article
Republish
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.
Email
Twitter26
Facebook166
LinkedIn
Print
Writing about positive emotions may help to reduce stress and anxiety, according to our new study, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology.
Earlier research has also found that writing about negative emotions – getting things “off your chest” – can improve your mental health. And it seems to benefit physical health, too.
Stress affects your physical health, so it is thought that improvements in mental well-being might stop people becoming physically unwell. Research has shown that writing about negative emotions can lead to fewer visits to the doctor, fewer self-reported symptoms of ill health, and less time off work due to ill health.
Not many studies have investigated writing about positive emotions, but if writing about negative emotions helps people deal with their negative thoughts and feelings, then it’s possible that focusing on positive emotions might have a positive effect on people’s mental health.
Earlier research has shown that writing about positive experiences for 20 minutes a day, for three consecutive days, improved people’s mood and led to fewer visits to the doctor. Even writing for as little as two minutes a day about a positive experience has been shown to reduce the number of health complaints that people report.
While earlier studies showed that writing about positive experiences can improve your mood, we didn’t know what effect it might have on stress and anxiety.
Twenty minutes a day
For our study, we investigated whether writing about a positive experience – which could include anything from being moved by a good book, painting or piece of music, to falling in love – could reduce stress, anxiety and common health complaints, such as a headache, back pain or coughs and colds. We also wanted to know if it would be helpful for all people, regardless of their level of distress.
Writing about falling in love could be good for your mental health. Look Studio/Shutterstock.com
We recruited 71 healthy participants, aged 19 to 77, and randomly allocated them to one of two groups. We asked one group (37 participants) to write about the most wonderful experiences of their life for 20 minutes a day, for three consecutive days, and we asked the other group (34 participants) to write about a neutral topic, such as their plans for the rest of the day, over the same time frame.
We measured levels of anxiety, as reported by the participants, immediately before and after they completed their writing task. We found a significantly greater decrease in anxiety for those people who wrote about positive experiences, compared with those who wrote about neutral topics.
The participants also reported their levels of stress, anxiety and physical health complaints four weeks after they completed the writing tasks. Stress and anxiety decreased to a significantly greater extent for those who wrote about positive experiences after four weeks, compared with the levels reported before they completed the writing tasks. However, writing didn’t improve participants’ physical health problems.
We also found that writing about happy moments was effective, regardless of the levels of distress that people reported at the start of the study.
Because we excluded people with a diagnosed psychological condition, we can’t be sure that this technique would work in a clinical setting. It’s also important to note that in order for them to engage with the task, it wasn’t possible to blind participants to the treatment. Another limitation of our study was that we relied on self-report questionnaires, rather than using objective measures of mental and physical health.
Of course, emotional writing may not be for everyone. Personality traits, problems expressing emotions or a disinterest in writing might mean that for some people there are better ways to tackle negative emotions.
An advantage of writing about positive emotions to tackle stress and anxiety is its simplicity. Unlike many other strategies for improving psychological well-being, this task needs no training or time spent with a therapist. People can do it at a time and place that is convenient for them – and it’s free.
Psychology
Stress
Anxiety
Writing
Tweet
Share
Get newsletter
You might also like
What happens to your body when you’re stressed – and how breathing can help
Surprising ways to beat anxiety and become mentally strong – according to science
Stop worrying about not getting enough exercise and being too stressed – you may live longer
How ‘stress’ changed from being a diagnosis for the elite to an affliction of the people
Sign in to comment
3 Comments
Oldest Newest
Show all comments
Most popular on The Conversation
Football and religion: two competing domains with a lot to offer Africa
Eritrea and Ethiopia have made peace. How it happened and what next
Obama’s Mandela lecture comes at an auspicious time for democracy
How Ethiopia and Kenya have put a world heritage site in danger
Collapsed bank CEO cases point to weaknesses in Nigeria’s justice system
Why African teams fell short at the World Cup - again
Nairobi is planning car-free days. They could bring many benefits
How to judge the success of the BRICS summit? Three questions will do the trick
How adapting to different climates has helped a pest spread across the globe
Rare meteorite recovery in Botswana can help reveal secrets of outer space
Expert Database
Find experts with knowledge in:*
Want to write?
Write an article and join a growing community of more than 69,900 academics and researchers from 2,418 institutions.
Register now
The Conversation
Community
Community standards
Republishing guidelines
Research and Expert Database
Analytics
Job Board
Our feeds
Company
Who we are
Our charter
Our team
Partners and funders
Contributing institutions
Resource for media
Contact us
Stay informed and subscribe to our free daily newsletter and get the latest analysis and commentary directly in your inbox.
Email address
Follow us on social media
Privacy policy Terms and conditions Corrections
Copyright © 2010–2018, The Conversation Africa, Inc.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment