Writing as a Tool for Emotion Regulation
Coping with emotions—trying to regulate or change them—is, whether we notice it or not, one of the most important undertakings of our daily lives. In days that seem to consist of repeating routines—waking up in the morning, reviewing the day's plans, following our routines, meeting our basic needs, completing tasks, and socializing—our emotions often fluctuate in unpredictable ways. Even on an ordinary day that fits our routine and resembles the one before, unpleasant emotions can surface at overwhelming levels, triggered by certain experiences or by old memories occupying our minds. When we go through these experiences that affect us emotionally, that we can't quite make sense of, and that are sad or anxiety-provoking, all of us instinctively try various methods of our own to regulate feelings like unhappiness, fear, anxiety, and hopelessness, and to feel better.
Regulating emotions isn't as concrete and straightforward as deciding what we'll do tomorrow. That's why every individual has developed their own methods for feeling better, whether or not those methods actually work. These methods can include mental or behavioral approaches such as calling a friend and describing the affecting event at length, replaying the event in our minds and thinking about what we could have said or how we could have acted, or increasing busyness to distract ourselves. Some of these methods can genuinely help, while others can make the emotional distress we're experiencing worse or last longer. “How can I feel better?” has never been an easy question to answer clearly. However, one method that is widely accepted as effective and functional, and that is also supported by research, can provide real help when needed, in addition to our own coping methods.
Journaling, or writing about our emotions, contains many healing elements, which makes it stand out as a healthy solution that can protect our psychological well-being against the emotional stress we experience in daily life. In this article, I wanted to share the healing effects of journaling or writing about emotions, along with an exercise that can help you get started.
The Therapeutic and Healing Effects of Journaling and Writing About Emotions
• Because journaling means putting our feelings into words, we can notice our emotions more easily. As we search for the right words to describe what's on our minds, we're forced to explore our experiences in detail, and if we keep doing this every day, we can start to see patterns in our reactions and thoughts. All of this is very beneficial, because it helps us understand ourselves better and more easily notice our needs.
• Suppressing emotions makes it harder to free ourselves from the effects of the negative life experience that brought them on. When we journal, however, we also express the negative emotions we're feeling, and expressing them has a healing effect in itself.
• Deneyimlerimiz ve tepkilerimiz hakkında yazdığımızda, aynı zamanda bize olanlar üzerinde daha derin düşünme ve bazen olayları ilk gördüğümüz şekilde değil, farklı bir perspektifte görme şansını yakalarız. Olayların tamamen siyah ya da tamamen beyaz olmadığını fark edebiliriz. Böylece aklımızda olayla ilgili dönüp duran otomatik düşünceleri, aklımızdaki rahatsız edici iç sesi sorgulama fırsatı bulabiliriz.
• Journaling is a tool that helps us cope with difficult life events or emotional challenges such as anxiety, stress, sadness, low mood, and lack of motivation, and offers us emotional support.
We can shape this new healthy habit—one that increases our self-awareness and helps us get to know ourselves better—in whatever way suits us, without following any fixed pattern, using all our creativity. Alongside this, you can also try the exercise I'll share below as an example when starting your own writing journey. This exercise is drawn from an experimental study conducted by Burton and King (2009). The study found that participants who wrote about positive emotional life experiences for twenty minutes a day, over three consecutive days, experienced a long-lasting positive effect on their well-being.
Exercise
Set aside twenty minutes each day for this exercise.
Day: Choose a moment from your life during which you felt truly happy. Then close your eyes and imagine yourself in that moment. Try to sense all the sounds and smells. Afterward, note down as much detail as possible, including your feelings, emotions, and thoughts.
Day: Rewrite the memory you wrote about the day before, experiencing it in the same way, or experience a new memory and write about it in full detail.
Day: Rewrite the memory you wrote about on the previous days, experiencing it in the same way, or experience a new memory and write about it in full detail.
Journaling, or writing, is in itself a habit that raises self-awareness. This exercise is meant to give people who aren't sure where to start writing, and who haven't experienced the healing effect of journaling/writing before, the motivation to benefit from it in the short term and turn journaling into a habit. A positive shift in the emotions we feel, or a reduction in emotional stress, may be one of the contributions this exercise offers us.
Writing, in itself, has a healing effect. Putting your inner world down on paper will help you get to know yourself better and cope with emotional stress. Sometimes noting down the positive emotions you feel and remembering, in full detail, that there are things in life that make us laugh, and sometimes writing down the details of a difficult emotion we're feeling and sharing that emotion with our journal by naming it, can be activities and methods that increase our capacity for emotion regulation when it comes to feeling good and being able to cope on our own.
Psychologist Duygu ÇANKAYA ÇADIRCIOĞLU
References
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/yes-is-normal/202004/the-writing-cure
Burton, Chad M., and King, Laura A.(2009) 'The health benefits of writing about positive experiences: The role of broadened cognition, Psychology & Health, 24:8,867-879
