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I’ve found keeping a personal journal a vital practice
throughout my life. In the late l970’s I envisioned
creating a guided journal to help others access their rich
inner world. It developed into the Day Runner, a product
to reflect the tone and needs of that time-crunched era.
It helped organize the many roles, goals and activities
that continue to fill our busy lives.
Our solutions vary, from drawing red circles on the refrigerator
calendar to making data entries in our computer notebooks.
But there is more to life than running errands, keeping
lunch dates and brainstorming at the office. Our inner lives
are at least as big, if not bigger than our outer lives.
Journal writing helps integrate and organize our complicated
lives in a variety of ways. It not only resolves traumas
that stand in the way of important tasks, it helps in remembering
significant events and turning points, it captures our creative
stories, poems and ideas, helps discover and define our
values and purpose, reap the wisdom of our dreams and discover
what is sacred in our lives.
Many journaling teachers and
authors know the healing benefits of keeping a journal. Marlene
A. Schiwy, in her book A Voice of Her Own, talks about the
healing dimensions of journal writing: "To create wholeness
in our lives is to heal ourselves. Healing comes from the
same root as whole and holiness. It is the attainment of wholeness
of body, mind, emotions and spirit. For many women, The journal
provides a gentle setting in which healing can take place.
It offers one place where literally and symbolically, all
of the pieces of one’s life finally come together."
And Lucia Cappaccione, author of The Well Being Journal, recognizes
that illness can be a great teacher from within. "The
most important message I learned from my disease is that the
healing process is activated by a spiritual force that resides
within. A journal can be a ‘living textbook’ for
learning the lessons that the illness has to teach."
And now, researchers like James
W. Pennebaker, M.D., professor of psychology at the University
of Texas at Austin, and Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., associate
professor of psychology at North Dakota State University,
are proving what journal writers have always known, journaling
is good not only for the soul, but for the body as well.
The first studies, in the late l980’s, examined healthy
people and journaling. Researchers have found that people
who write about their deepest thoughts and feelings surrounding
upsetting events have stronger immunity and visit their
doctors half as often as those who write only about trivial
events. And more recently, exciting and innovative research
appeared in the April l4th issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association. The research, conducted by Joshua M.
Smyth at the State University of New York at Stoneybrook,
showed that writing about a stressful experience reduces
physical symptoms in patients with chronic illnesses. The
team monitored 112 patients with arthritis or asthma. The
subjects were asked to write in a journal for 20 minutes
three days in a row about either an emotionally stressful
incident or their plans for the day. Of the group who expressed
their anxiety on paper, 50% showed a large improvement in
their disease after four months. Only 25% of patients who
wrote on neutral topics showed any relief of symptoms.
"More importantly," says Pamela M. Peeke, MD,
MPH, ISPA Medical Advisor, "22% of the people who only
wrote about their daily plans worsened substantially over
the four-month period, while only 4% of those who wrote
about their stressful events did so." She adds, "One
of the least studied techniques so commonly taught in spas
is journaling. Now, there is intriguing evidence that journaling
has a direct impact upon the status of chronic disease."
In their studies, Smyth and Pennebaker had participants
write for 15-30 minutes on four consecutive days about the
most traumatic event in their lives. Writing continuously
about a problem allowed the participants to thoroughly examine
the event and how it affected them. "People have to
stick with it," said a participant. "I get to
the first page and it’s pure anger or frustration.
They need to get beyond the emotion and discover a better
understand. The need to find the ending of the process."
Pennebaker says developing a deeper understanding of the
event and the emotions it generates helps the brain digest
the information. He thinks when you analyze a traumatic
event your brain turns it into a story that’s stored
more easily. "Storytelling simplifies a complex experience,"
he says.
While many people who journal on a regular basis do so
because it makes them feel better, until recently there
hasn’t been any scientific evidence to prove it. "It
would be interesting to know how the science of how journaling
is connected to the body." Says Nancy Linnon, who lectures
on writing and health at Canyon Ranch Resort and Spa in
Tucson, Arizona. "I haven’t found one person who
said journaling didn’t help them."
Journal writing has the lowest risk factor imaginable,
mentally as well as financially, providing you with the
gentlest and safest of therapies. No expertise required,
no minimum time required, and you don’t lose the benefits
if you miss a time period. There are even instances where
the process of journal writing has sustained the writer
beyond her anticipated life span, where she lived on precisely
in order to finish saying what she had to say.
Felice Willat is
the mother of three daughters and the founder of Day Runner,
Inc. She is also the founder of Tools With Heart which offers
Woman’s Book of Changes and other journals especially
for ISPA members.
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