Writing to feel better
By Aubrey Burke, HealthAngle Correspondent
Treatment can come in many forms. A pill container, a surgical procedure, or a medical device like a pacemaker, for example. But something doesn’t have to be FDA-approved to be useful.
Writing — about your experience with surgery, a hospital or doctor visit, or struggles with an illness — can make you feel better. This not only makes sense intuitively, but has been backed up by research with many different patients and published in top journals*. The simple act of writing can help manage feelings, offer insight and control, and, as a result, decrease stress — with no side effects.
It is normal for people to be anxious about medical procedures and hospital visits, says Michelle Craske, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an author of the book Mastering Your Fears and Phobias. “As humans, we feel vulnerable seeing blood and needles and having pain because at some level, it is a threat to our survival,” says Craske.
Using words not only can change how you feel, but also changes how your brain interprets a stressful event, says Matthew Lieberman, an associate professor of psychology at UCLA. Communicating what is causing negative feelings can change those feelings, he says.
Writing let me “feel in charge of my own body,” says Harry Howard, an attorney in Chatham, Massachusetts. A doctor discovered a lump in Howard’s neck during a routine physical. A biopsy revealed cancer, and he had his thyroid gland removed. Howard wrote about his biopsy and surgery.
Writing about the experience, he says, “reasserted that I had to be positive in my recovery. It reminded me how important mind is over matter. It empowered me.”
His wife agrees.
“My husband was skeptical about writing, but I marveled at how Harry changed,” says Suzanne Howard. “He was petrified of anesthesia. He was a basket case. The writing calmed him, it helped him organize his thoughts. I’m okay with me having surgery, but if my husband has to, I’m a basket case. He was calmer, so I was calmer. That was a big thing for me.”
*References
Lieberman, M.D., et. al., Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli, Psychological Science, 2007, vol. 18, no. 5, 421- 428.
Langens, T.A., et. al., Effects of Written Expression: the Role of Positive Expectancies, Health Psychology, 2007 March; 26(2):174-82.
Stanton, A.L., et. al., Randomized, Controlled Trial of Written Emotional Expression and Benefit in Breast Cancer Patients, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oct 2002, vol. 20, 4160-4168.
Smyth, J.M., et. al., Effects of Writing About Stressful Experiences on Symptom Reduction in Patients With Asthma or Rheumatoid Arthritis, Journal of the American Medical Association, April 14, 1999, vol. 281, no. 14, 1304-1309.