“I write and I’ll write and write and only write to fill in the void before I turn mad”.
Expressive writing is a form of self reflective technique used to heal the unnoticed emotional wounds. Words heal and inking them on the blank sheet is proven to be an effective usage to deal with one’s own stressors.
What are stressors?
A stressor is a cause or a state that causes tension and pain.
In our study, we analyze what are academic stressors and how can expressive writing be used as a coping mechanism or as fancifulness we say – escapism.
Academic stressors are exam related pressure, fear of missing out on one’s youth, strain due to constantly trying to achieve perfectionism, lack of study material and proper guidance.
Hence, there are various and personalized issues that one can be under the shade of deed which academics brings to students whether they are an ardent researcher who overachieves for validating himself by knowing that’s the only way too for him to feel his worth which is a socially built construct by the bourgeoisie class for as to motive the young achiever to strain themselves to the point of terming it as – hard working which camouflages the literal sense – burnout.
Please note that we haven’t taken the HSPs (Highly Sensitive Person) into our account which is an another debate where burnouts are a frequent drive down the lane due to their sensitivity towards their high intake of consuming the energies around them which leads to overwhelmed effect on their mental and physical well being.
Coming back to expressive writing, it is noting down our feelings or whatever chaos that our mind’s kitchen is playing. We carefully or not so carefully write down any word that comes straight into our head and write it down and keep going until the fingers are numb or when the thoughts aren’t torturing to be on paper.
It is quite similar to the literary technique – stream of consciousness where the expressions, punctuations, style, spacing, format; nothing is giving much importance to but the old heart’s lament.
Often while we write down certain things that we need to be put off our shoulders aren’t too reliable for as it is quite understood that – we like to exaggerate the events.
But that isn’t the sole purpose as the emotional depth found through strong imagery and personification has to be understood rather than the event itself. Once again we do not need our eyes to be on the story but rather the strong emotions felt which needs it’s flushing.
The connection between expressive writing and wellness has been notably explored by Dr. James Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin.1 In his landmark research project; Pennebaker developed an expressive writing prompt to uncover the potential health benefits of writing about emotional upheaval. Pennebaker's research project has been replicated many times with positive outcomes. The prompt and subsequent studies are often referred to as the Pennebaker Paradigm.
Now we finally take into account what are the benefits of expressive writing are –
Flushing out the negatives – when we sit down to write and express ourselves, quite often we write about our troubling and distress. While doing so we are removing the toxins and our worries, hence transferring them on a sheet of paper. While we do so, we have in a way cleansed ourselves so as to return with a fresh and stable mindset.
Knowing our triggers – overtime, when we have spent such a considerable amount of time typing or writing down ourselves in the form of words, we start to recognize similar patterns and attitudes that caused us to feel such. Hence we get better as conscious awareness is alerted.
Coping mechanism – what is the harm in understanding your coping mechanism towards stressors? Now that we are potentially aware of the stressor, we made a deliberate effort to explore our methods for our sanity. Hence when in stress, we always are well in the sense to use expressive writing as our tool for energizing ourselves back to hustle.
Quick recovery – Writing has been proven to be one of the best ways to eliminate stress, even though it’s temporary. We don’t sulk into the negativity that our mind’s false consciousness plays with but rather it comes out immediately and gets out of it to start fresh.
Health benefits – If there is emotional stressor we are bound that it will have some amount of effect on our physical wellbeing as well. With expressive writing, it has been proven that the immunity is stronger, lesser visits to the doctor, improved liver function, reduced BP, improved lung function and many more benefits.
To conclude, write, write and write until you fill up the blank sheet with ink blots of frivolous thoughts and most importantly the void.
- Pooja Singh