Writing about our emotions helps heal wounds

From the primitive sounds and gestures emitted by the Homo habilis to the complex languages ​​developed by the Homo sapiens, the 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 languageWe 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 rathere thanks to various technologies we can record 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 the sending a WhatsApp message, the capacity for symbolic representation allows us to communicate our thoughts and that anyone who have access to the means of presentation of these can get in touch with what we thought in that moment.

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 the writer. Apart from communicating, writing also allows us to organize our thoughts, going from a chaotic flow in our mind to a linear structure on paper.

“The words make noise, they blur the paper and anyone can see and hear them. Instead, ideas are trapped inside the head of the thinker. If we want to know what someone else is thinking, or to 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 from the University of Auckland, Koschwanez and her collaborators (2013) investigated how expressive writing would affect wound healing in people over 60 years of age, as it is the population group in which immune function is seen the most harmed. The reduction in the speed of healing is usually associated with stress and depressive symptoms.

The expressive writing method usually consists in that, on three consecutive days, the person should write for 20 minutes about the most traumatic experience they have suffered, with particular emphasis on feelings, emotions, and thoughts during this stressful event.

How does the study was realized?

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", understanding the term "healed" as a scarring complete.

The results, very encouraging

Regarding the results of the study, on day 11 after the biopsy, the number of people whose wounds were healed was already significantly greater 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 was already observed, with 27% scarring 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 processing cognitive of traumatic events, perceiving the event from another perspective and reducing the stress that this provokes. 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 that have found that high levels of cortisol, hormone released in response to stress, plays 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 suffer from any disorder. For example, Krpan and his collaborators (2013) wanted to measure the effectiveness of expressive writing as 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, the participants of the group of intervention would write 20 minutes a day for three days about their deepest feelings about an event traumatic. Participants were administered a series of questionnaires and cognitive measures before the intervention, one day after the end of the intervention, and four weeks later. Among these evaluation systems was the Beck Depression Inventory.

Regarding the results obtained, one day after finishing the intervention, the reduction in depressive symptoms was already significantly greater in those who had written about their feelings, emotions 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) found that when people write about these traumatic events, what they do is alter the perspective from which they see the problem, it is say, 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 him. Therefore, putting feelings, emotions and thoughts on paper would cause us to adopt a perspective of the problem from a more distant point. Namely, we would go from reliving the experience in the first person to remembering it as something foreign to us, similar 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 build a narrative about it, giving it meaning and giving it a series of explanations different. All these processes would reduce the aversiveness of the memory, allowing this, according to Park and her collaborators (2016), a lower emotional and physiological reactivity. These effects would lead to an improvement in mental and physical health, and with it in the quality of life.

A promising tool

In conclusion, due to the low economic and time cost that this activity requires, it should be taken considered 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 your support, a pen and paper could also serve as a support method in difficult times.

Bibliographic references:

• Koschwanez, H., Kerse, N., Darragh, M., Jarrett, P., Booth, R., & Broadbent, E. (2013). Expressive writing and wound healing in older adults: a randomized controlled trial. Psychosomatic medicine, 75 (6), 581-590.

• Krpan, K. M., Kross, E., Berman, M. G., Deldin, P. J., Askren, M. K., & Jonides, J. (2013). An everyday activity as a treatment for depression: The benefits of expressive writing for people diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Journal of affective disorders, 150 (3), 1148-1151.

• Park, J., Ayduk, Ö., & Kross, E. (2016). Stepping back to move forward: Expressive writing promotes self-distancing. Emotion, 16 (3), 349.

• Petrie, K., Fontanilla, I., Thomas, M., Booth, R., & Pennebaker, J. (2004). Effect of written emotional expression on immune function in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection: a randomized trial. Psychosomatic Medicine, 66 (2), 272-275.

• Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

• 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.