A healthy lifestyle is about more than exercise and diet. It includes your emotional and mental health, and how you deal with stress, pain, sadness, and even getting older. If you believe the body and mind aren’t related, think again. Let me show you some indications that they are related, and how writing can be therapeutic.
Have you ever considered writing as something therapeutic? Writing can help you deal with stress and pain. It can improve your emotional well being by expressing thoughts and feelings you might otherwise keep bottled up inside or express through anger and even physical illness.
This is true for all of us, regardless of age. Emotions have a greater impact on our physical condition than many people believe. Many physicians are looking at this connection now because studies are showing that being in a better state of mind helps the immune system and disease.
Therapeutic writing isn’t about producing a novel or a best seller. It’s about writing from inside; writing what feels good; writing to help you connect with yourself and others. There are a number of ways to do it.
LIFE STORIES
Adults, and particularly seniors, can begin by writing their life stories. This is something very productive that will help you share some of yourself with others. You can pass it on to your children and future generations explaining to them what life was like as you were growing up.
It’s becoming more popular too as people realize that you can write for yourself and your family, and not just to be published or mass-marketed. The University of California, Los Angeles, Center on Aging, even offers a course on “guided autobiography for seniors.”
Writing your life story can help you connect to the world. By sharing your past experiences they come into focus, you’ll see them more clearly. Through writing a life history, you can also help children learn how life has changed from generation-to-generation within your family.
Writing your life story can be beneficial for you, as the writer, and is a wonderful legacy for the future generations of your family.
JOURNALING
Another therapeutic form of writing is “journaling.” This is often misunderstood because many think journaling is just a new word for keeping a “diary.” But there is a distinct difference.
Many of us kept a diary when we were young. A place where we wrote about what happened to us during the day, and perhaps our secret wishes and desires. It chronicled the events of our young lives. It was something to be locked away from big brothers and other prying eyes.
But a journal is a place where you will record your thoughts and feelings – not the activities of the day, but your emotions and reactions to what’s occurring in your life. Doing this on a regular basis is excellent for your physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. You are expressing thoughts and feelings instead of keeping them inside or expressing them through anger, violence or physical illness.
You’ll find many good resources on journaling, both in books and on the Internet.
TIPS
As for getting started, here are some tips for therapeutic writing:
• Write everyday, if possible.
• Write at the same time of day, starting by experimenting at different times to find when you’re most comfortable and inspired.
• Set a time period or number of pages as a goal for each session, and try sticking to it.
• Use pen, pencil, typewriter or computer, whatever is most comfortable.
• Write what you’re experiencing, pain, stress, or sadness, trying to convey all that you are feeling.
• Really open up when you write, express thoughts and feelings not just events and activities.
Practicing yoga has taught me that the body and mind are not separate. They are connected. This is something that Western culture has not completely accepted yet. But recent research is heading in that direction and is showing that emotional health does have direct results on the immune system and disease. Writing can help your emotional health, which can have a great impact on physical healing and health.
So for a healthy lifestyle, consider something beyond exercise and diet – consider looking at the body/mind connection and how therapeutic writing could be for you.
713 words
Have you ever considered writing as something therapeutic? Writing can help you deal with stress and pain. It can improve your emotional well being by expressing thoughts and feelings you might otherwise keep bottled up inside or express through anger and even physical illness.
This is true for all of us, regardless of age. Emotions have a greater impact on our physical condition than many people believe. Many physicians are looking at this connection now because studies are showing that being in a better state of mind helps the immune system and disease.
Therapeutic writing isn’t about producing a novel or a best seller. It’s about writing from inside; writing what feels good; writing to help you connect with yourself and others. There are a number of ways to do it.
LIFE STORIES
Adults, and particularly seniors, can begin by writing their life stories. This is something very productive that will help you share some of yourself with others. You can pass it on to your children and future generations explaining to them what life was like as you were growing up.
It’s becoming more popular too as people realize that you can write for yourself and your family, and not just to be published or mass-marketed. The University of California, Los Angeles, Center on Aging, even offers a course on “guided autobiography for seniors.”
Writing your life story can help you connect to the world. By sharing your past experiences they come into focus, you’ll see them more clearly. Through writing a life history, you can also help children learn how life has changed from generation-to-generation within your family.
Writing your life story can be beneficial for you, as the writer, and is a wonderful legacy for the future generations of your family.
JOURNALING
Another therapeutic form of writing is “journaling.” This is often misunderstood because many think journaling is just a new word for keeping a “diary.” But there is a distinct difference.
Many of us kept a diary when we were young. A place where we wrote about what happened to us during the day, and perhaps our secret wishes and desires. It chronicled the events of our young lives. It was something to be locked away from big brothers and other prying eyes.
But a journal is a place where you will record your thoughts and feelings – not the activities of the day, but your emotions and reactions to what’s occurring in your life. Doing this on a regular basis is excellent for your physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. You are expressing thoughts and feelings instead of keeping them inside or expressing them through anger, violence or physical illness.
You’ll find many good resources on journaling, both in books and on the Internet.
TIPS
As for getting started, here are some tips for therapeutic writing:
• Write everyday, if possible.
• Write at the same time of day, starting by experimenting at different times to find when you’re most comfortable and inspired.
• Set a time period or number of pages as a goal for each session, and try sticking to it.
• Use pen, pencil, typewriter or computer, whatever is most comfortable.
• Write what you’re experiencing, pain, stress, or sadness, trying to convey all that you are feeling.
• Really open up when you write, express thoughts and feelings not just events and activities.
Practicing yoga has taught me that the body and mind are not separate. They are connected. This is something that Western culture has not completely accepted yet. But recent research is heading in that direction and is showing that emotional health does have direct results on the immune system and disease. Writing can help your emotional health, which can have a great impact on physical healing and health.
So for a healthy lifestyle, consider something beyond exercise and diet – consider looking at the body/mind connection and how therapeutic writing could be for you.
713 words
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