Writing about traumatic events can help to heal

Keeping secrets can make you sick

As I mentioned last time, I am reading a book called The Secret Life of Pronouns.  In it, I learned that people who write about their traumatic experiences in a certain way -- not obsessively reliving it, but telling the events in a narrative -- are much healthier than those who do not speak or write about their experiences.  And I'm not talking about mentally healthier, I mean physically healthier.

That's a bit surprising, isn't it?  Maybe not completely, because why else would Psychology exist as a therapeutic practice?  Still, just writing about what happened to you can change things for the better.

Conversely, holding things in makes people unhealthy.

In another book I've recently read, Fringeology, I learned about a technique to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which involves the patient retelling what happened, and then simple eye movements, called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).  The fact that PTSD had been untreatable for most people until this was discovered makes this extremely strange fact all the more interesting.

Open up!  Holding it in makes us unhealthy.