Putting Stress into Words: The Impact of Writing on Physiological, Absentee, and Self-Reported Emotional Well-Being Measures

Abstract

Background and Purpose. Inhibiting or holding back one's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors is associated with long-term stress and disease. Actively confronting upsetting experiences can reduce the negative effects of inhibition. The present study describes a unique approach to aid individuals in dealing with psychological and emotional issues that they must often face. Methods. Forty-one of the 81 university employees who were participating in a wellness program agreed to participate in the present study. Subjects were randomly assigned to write about either personal traumatic experiences (n = 23) or non-traumatic topics (n = 18) for 20 minutes once a week for four consecutive weeks. Results. Results indicate that individuals who wrote about upsetting personal experiences evidenced significant drops in selected blood measures compared to those who wrote about non-traumatic topics (e.g., for SGOT: 4.0% drop among traumatic topic group versus 13.1% increase among non-traumatic topic group, ANOVA p = .029; for SGPT: 24.5% drop versus 7.7% increase, p =. 001). During the month of writing, traumatic topic group subjects evidenced a 28.6% reduction in absentee rates from work relative to the eight months before the experiment compared with a 48.5% increase in absentee rates among non-traumatic topic subjects (p =. 04). Subjects low in emotional inhibition evidenced the greatest reductions in absentee rates following personal disclosure compared to those high in emotional inhibition (p = .011). Discussion. The proposed writing strategy offers a unique tool for health promotion practitioners. Individuals encouraged to let themselves go and confront traumatic experiences in their lives can potentially enhance their own health.