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Expressive Writing Technique as the
Best Stress Reliever

Writing – A Meditative State of the Mind

Writing is a great way to bring positive changes in your life. Many studies conducted in the past reveal that those with a habit of writing generally have greater feelings of happiness. It not only improves their memory function but also offers them a way to sharpen their intellectual prowess and foster the ability to refine ideas so that they can be best understood.

Writing daily also brings clarity to compose, focus, have a purpose in mind, and communicate your thoughts clearly and unambiguously. In a sense, writing can be described as a meditative state for the brain.

However, good writing is not something that comes easily. It needs time and effort. According to a study published by Inc. Magazine based in New York City, poor writing skills are costing businesses billions of dollars, including $3.1 on remedial writing training.

Regardless of how well you write or not, the habit of writing has proven to have physiological and emotional benefits. In this post, we would like to offer you some of the ways that expressive writing techniques can provide relief from stress. So let’s take a quick look at each one of them:

9 Ways Expressive Writing Relieves Stress

1. Off-Loading Bottled Emotions
   Expressive writing is all about putting your feelings behind your thoughts and transmitting them through written words. This allows the person to share emotions that otherwise seldom find a venue or a place to be discharged. Our feelings can poison us from the inside and make us cynical regarding the world if we do not share them. They can gnaw at you from the inside.

   Being social animals, we find comfort in another when we talk to them, as this helps us offload ourselves. Similarly, when writing using an expressive technique, it allows us to share those emotions that have been haunting us for a very long time. 

2. Processing Your Thoughts
   At times, we all need to simply align our thoughts in an orderly manner to make sense of the world around us. Our lives can often make us face our biggest fears and go through traumatic experiences that can make anyone restless. By processing your thoughts, you bring a certain amount of calm and tranquility to your cognitive abilities.

   The chaos in your head subsides down and gives you a chance to move ahead out of all the confusion that surrounds you. Plus, when we process our thoughts, we are better able to equip ourselves with many outcomes that our actions or speech may produce.

3. Critically Review Situations
   It is crucial that when we are feeling challenged or finding it hard to cope with things, we take time out to critically analyze our situation to get better control of them. This gives us room to step back and look at an incident or an occurrence with a new perspective and probably even a fresher one.

   When we critically analyze things, we pay attention to detail, and this brings forth new insights to which we weren’t aware of before. Our daily routines can be quite busy in an urban setting, which leaves us often feeling exhausted. Writing helps you find that place in your mind that allows you to disengage from your surroundings.

4. Extensive Self-Evaluation
   Evaluating your own self is a critical practice that many great people of our times often process regularly. This offers us a sound approach to judge current conditions and make a better decision regarding ourselves.

   When writing about our thoughts and feelings, we come across various aspects that can offer the chance to evaluate our self. By looking into our own collar, the blame game, we all love to play comes to a standstill. The limelight is placed on your head, and this offers you various reasons to improve yourself in the future. 

5. Secrets That Cannot Be Disclosed
   When unforeseeable things happen that cannot be explained as they may contain volatile information that others can use against you, we keep them a secret within us. However, these secrets do not do us any good as they can also build up anxiety, stress, and feelings o guilt insider us.

   Expressive writing allows us a medium to relay such secrets, and a witty writer can use the play of words or maneuverability of ideas to say what they want to say without causing their privacy to be compromised. While their secrets remain intact, they can allow the reader to judge as to whatever they wish to presume on the narrative they share in their writing.

6. Gives You an Escape
   Some incidents can be too overwhelming for us to manage, and if we continue to live with a certain mindset, it can hamper our ability to make sound judgments. This is where one needs to escape from what is happening at present and isolate themselves from their surroundings.

   Writing can help you find that escape. Usually, writing requires a place where one can peacefully think on their own without any interruptions or disturbances in between. Thus, it offers you a break from your daily routine activities and schedules, as well as separating you from what is causing you to bother. 

7. Consistent vs Occasional
   Both consistent writers and occasional writers experience the benefits of writing. Though those who continue to write at a steady pace mind end up achieving emotional milestones quicker as they can relay their thoughts periodically and regularly.

   However, there is no doubt that even if you write occasionally, it does offer you a lot of relief from stress. Plus, there are different thresholds for everyone. A person might not need to worry about the pressure that they can manage on their own, whereas when that threshold has been breached, it is pertinent that they find relief from it; otherwise, it could cause hindrances for them to function like an average person.

8. Physical Health Benefits
   Apart from relief from stress, writing also offers numerous health benefits. These can include sharpening of the memory as many studies indicate that when you write down things by your own hand, they can be easier to memorize, and retention ration is much higher. Writing can also offer you a tremendous boost to your moods.

   Since most expressive writing offers you the freedom to explore notions and ideas that interest you and at your own accord, there is a sense of unwinding your thoughts and allowing them to flow freely. Many studies also reveal that expressing emotions through words may also speed up the process of healing in people.

9. Even Disabled Find Relief
   Perhaps the most beautiful thing about writing is that it's benefits are non-discriminatory to race, color, gender, social class, and even for persons with disabilities. Everyone can find relief from stress when they write, and there is no particular criterion based on any other discrimination that might inflict us in our daily lives.

Conclusion

We hope this post was able to offer you some great insights into how expressive writing can provide relief from stress. As an ending note, we would like to recommend that you keep a gratitude journal for yourself whenever you feel like writing.

This is where you can jot down everything that makes you grateful for the things you enjoy and have in life. It is a great of appreciating one’s life and brings in a lot of positive thoughts into our minds.

Author Bio

Stella Lincoln currently works as a Psychology Tutor. She is also a Counselor at Dissertation Assistance, where students can acquire professional academic help from experts. She likes to spend time in her husband’s garden and try to learn new things from him regarding agricultural produce and its proper maintenance.