Life’s stresses can weigh heavy and have a much greater impact than we realize. Especially for those of us who are constantly worrying—about what we’re going to wear tomorrow, what we’ll do if we hit traffic on the way to work, how that blind coffee date will go later this week. These individuals spend a lot of their time and energy anticipating future events and tasks that they feel uneasy about, which means they’re pretty much always multitasking; they’re rarely able to focus on what’s right in front of them. But a new study reveals what appears to be a simple fix for these constant worriers: journaling.

Researchers at Michigan State University found that simply writing about one’s feelings related to an upcoming task can help ease fears and, in turn, lead them to perform the task more efficiently. While many have previously claimed the great benefits of journaling or writing down one’s thoughts, this study delivers the first neural evidence for the effectiveness of expressive writing, according to Hans Schroder, lead author and MSU doctoral student in Psychology.

In order to make this discovery, Schroder collaborated with associate professor of psychology and director of MSU’s Clinical Psychophysiology Lab, Jason Moser, as well as research scientist at Emory University, Tim Moran. The three first identified chronically anxious college students through an authorized screening measure and then evaluated them before, during, and after they completed a given task—except half of the students were instructed to write about their deepest thoughts related to the upcoming task beforehand, while the other half (the control group) were told to simply write about what they did the day before.

The researchers found that students in both groups performed at around the same level for speed and accuracy, but the expressive-writing group completed the given task more efficiently—in that they used fewer brain resources (measured with EEG) to do so. Moser explains these findings by comparing the college students to cars: “Here, worried college students who wrote about their worries were able to offload those worries and run more like a brand-new Prius, whereas the worried students who didn’t offload their worries ran more like a ’74 Impala—guzzling more brain gas to achieve the same outcomes on the task.”

Previous studies have proven the effectiveness of expressive writing in helping us process and heal from traumatic or stressful events; but now, there’s evidence that shows expressive writing can also help us prepare for upcoming stressful events or tasks. “Our findings show that if you get these worries out of your head through expressive writing, those cognitive resources are freed up to work toward the task you’re completing and you become more efficient,” says Schroder.

If you didn’t believe in the positive effects of journaling, hopefully you’re on your way to believing. And if you’re still not convinced? I challenge you to try it. Write down some thoughts on a notepad, a sticky note, in a word document on your computer—wherever you prefer. Just get your thoughts down somewhere and see for yourself if it lends some therapeutic relief.

Source: Michigan State University “Expressive Writing Cools Brain on Stressful Tasks for Worriers.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 14 September 2017.
http://neurosciencenews.com/worriers-stress-expressive-writing-7487/

Original Research: Abstract for “The effect of expressive writing on the error-related negativity among individuals with chronic worry” by Hans S. Schroder, Tim P. Moran and Jason S. Moser in Psychophysiology. Published online September 8 2017 doi:10.1111/psyp.12990