More Benefits of Journalling

King (2001) The health benefits of writing about life goals - GenerallyThinking Psychology Research Database

In this study, undergraduate students were asked to write for 20 minutes a day, for 4 days, on either:  

• their most traumatic life event
• their best possible future self
• both of the above
• a neutral topic (the control group)

Writing about trauma was initially upsetting whereas writing about their 'best possible self' lifted feelings of well being.  The researchers collected health centre data for the students for 5 months.  The authors found that:

'writing about trauma, one’s best possible self, or both were associated with decreased illness compared with controls.'

I am a big fan of journalling.  This study suggests that it has significant health benefits.  There is a growing body of research suggesting that identifying our values (who we want to be in the world, what we want our life to stand for or, in this case, exploring what our 'best possible future self' would be like) is good for our emotional and physical well being.


This study also suggests that although writing about a traumatic memory is painful, it is also good for our health.    Writing about a trauma helps us to look at the memory from a distance, it helps us to see when we are caught in grinding the same thoughts over and over without moving forward, it can help us to create a coherent story of the event with a sense of meaning.  It can also help us make peace with those memories so they have less power to 'hook' us.