Have you ever tried writing? We don’t mean an essay for school or a report for work. Rather, have you ever tried to write anything for yourself? This can be anything from a journal entry to a poem or short story. If you have, how did you feel after finishing your piece? Did you feel lighter, more relaxed, or accomplished?
Many believe that writing can be very beneficial for your mental health. Journaling is often recommended by professionals as a great way to reflect and calm down, especially after an eventful day. Creative writing can also help you explore your own thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and emotions. Many people turn to creative writing to help process heavy emotions such as grief or anger.
But how, exactly, can writing help you with your mental health? Here are five benefits that writing can offer.
Clear your thoughts.
Having a million thoughts running through your head can be overwhelming and disorienting. Not being able to think straight, especially during a stressful period, can result in irrational decisions with damaging consequences. Sitting down and writing about what you’re going through can help you organize your thoughts better. Expressive writing, in particular, has been a well-known therapeutic tool, as it involves writing your thoughts and feelings on a stressful life event. By doing such a thing, you are allowing yourself to process the traumatic event so that you can take more steps towards healing.
You can feel accomplished.
Writing can be considered the act of creating something out of nothing. Filling up blank pages with your words can help you feel a sense of accomplishment and pride. After all, it’s nice to look back on the fruits of your labor. It’s also recommended that you keep all your old writing, even if looking back at them makes you cringe. Being able to look back at your old work will help you realize how much you’ve improved over the years, which can be a great confidence booster.
Take care of your social needs.
They say writing is a solitary activity. While that is true most of the time, it doesn’t have to be done alone. Writers tend to flock together to create their own communities, providing each other with resources and feedback to help each other grow. Finding your own space in a writing community will grant you the opportunity to form connections with like-minded people and learn more about the craft with them. If you’d rather not join a community, you can still use your writing to connect with people by showing your work to your friends and family.
Improve your focus.
Our attention spans have continued to shorten throughout the years, so much so that Gen Z individuals only have an attention span of around eight seconds. Writing, however, will have you focusing on something for a much longer period.
Writing keeps your brain occupied because the act of doing so requires so many steps. During the process, you think of the point you want to make, figure out how you want to express it, type or write it down, read it over to make sure it makes sense and flows well, and then repeat. You may even have to do some research in between, if necessary. All these steps force your brain to focus on the overall picture, your writing piece. Writing regularly will also improve your attention span over time.
If you’re looking for a healthy coping mechanism and you haven’t tried it out yet, you can experiment and see if writing works well for you. We wish you luck on your writing journey!