Healing Power of Writing: A Blog a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

In the beginning Blogs were mainly a means of listing links to others sites or news articles with a bit of commentary. But they have evolved into a whole new world of communication and social networking.

According to Wikipedia - "A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order."

You can find almost any kind of blog on the web today. We have everything from professional blog sites to personal journals and diaries turned into blogs giving the world an opportunity to be voyeurs into other people's lives.

Blogs give everyone the opportunity to have their 15 minutes of fame even if they only have 10 visitors a day. An interesting phenomenon happens when people use the internet, it removes some of our inhibitions giving us the opportunity to express ourselves in ways we would never do face to face. It offers some sense of anonymity even if we share the most personal of details including our name.

So what in the world do blogs have to do with our health?

Dr James Pennebaker, professor of Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin, pioneered research into the links between writing and health.

Dr. Pennebaker's initial findings were interesting. His participants reported that writing about horrible experiences left them feeling horrible immediately after writing. Dr. Pennebaker writes in his book, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions that "In analyzing the mood findings, it appeared that all we had succeeded in doing was inventing a new way to make people depressed," but when he writes six months down the track, however, the picture changed. Pennebaker found that people who had written revealing accounts of a personal trauma showed an "impressive drop" in visits to the doctor, compared with control groups who were assigned other writing topics."

And, upon analyzing a follow-up questionnaire given to participates four months after the experiment, he reported "Writing about their deepest thoughts and feelings about traumas resulted in improved moods, more positive outlook, and greater physical health."

In addition, according to author Stephanie Dowrick, who wrote "Living Words: Journal Writing for self-discovery, insight and creativity", there are many other less measurable benefits. According to Mrs. Dowrick, "Writing a journal can literally be life-changing. It is the key to discovering your own unique inner world, it lets you "read" your own life and see the world around yourself more richly, more deeply."

Ultimately, self-expression, whether it is through writing or actually verbalizing your feelings, is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. We are finding out more and more about the impact our emotions have on our physical and mental health. Studies suggest that 50 - 75 percent of all visits to the doctor are primarily related to stress and 8 out of 10 of the most commonly prescribed medications in the U.S. are intended to treat problems directly related to stress! So a little journaling could do us all good!

One of the most effective tools I found during my illness was writing. I was so frustrated and angry and even hurt that, without having taken the opportunity to use journaling to express myself, I probably would have perpetuated my disorder and maybe even made it worse. Stress negatively impacts us all and the more we ignore our emotions the greater the health risk!

To learn more about my personal experience with a chronic illness and how I used writing to help process my emotions and support the healing of my body read Journal Writing for your Mind, Body and Spirit

A Blog a Day could really keep the Doctor Away!

So Blog away...........!

Take the conscious road to authentic power!

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