Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain 3rd edition

"Expressing painful emotions is hard--yet it can actually improve our mental and physical health. Distinguished psychologist James W. Pennebaker has spent decades studying what happens when people take just a few minutes to write about deeply felt personal experiences or problems. This lucid, compassionate book has introduced tens of thousands of readers to an easy to use self help technique that has been proven to heal old emotional wounds, promote a sense of well being, decrease stress, improve relationships, and boost the immune system. Updated with findings from hundreds of new studies, the significantly revised second edition now contains practical exercises to help readers try out expressive writing. It features extensive new information on specific health benefits, as well as when the approach may not be helpful"--
Drawing on real people studied or interviewed, Pennebaker and Smyth present their book in expressive writing--defined as a technique where people typically write about an upsetting experience for 15 to 20 minutes a day for three or four days--an exercise which has been found to improve people’s physical and mental health for weeks, months, and even years compared to individuals who write about emotionally neutral topics (or other comparison groups). First described in a scientific paper in 1986, this method has strong scientific evidence behind it and has been used to treat a variety of physical health problems as well as mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Expressing painful emotions is hard--yet it can actually improve our mental and physical health. This lucid, compassionate book has introduced tens of thousands of readers to expressive writing, a simple yet powerful self-help technique grounded in scientific research. Leading experts James W. Pennebaker and Joshua M. Smyth describe how taking just a few minutes to write about deeply felt personal experiences or problems may help you: *Heal old emotional wounds *Feel a greater sense of well-being *Decrease stress *Improve relationships *Boost your immune system Vivid stories and examples yield compelling insights into secrets, self-disclosure, and the hidden price of silence. The third edition incorporates findings from hundreds of recent studies and includes practical exercises to help you try expressive writing for yourself. It features extensive new information on specific health benefits, as well as when the approach may not be helpful.
Expressing painful emotions is hard--yet it can actually improve our mental and physical health. Distinguished psychologist James W. Pennebaker has spent decades studying what happens when people take just a few minutes to write about deeply felt personal experiences or problems. This lucid, compassionate book has introduced tens of thousands of readers to an easy-to-use self-help technique that has been proven to heal old emotional wounds, promote a sense of well-being, decrease stress, improve relationships, and boost the immune system. Updated with findings from hundreds of new studies, the significantly revised second edition now contains practical exercises to help readers try out expressive writing. It features extensive new information on specific health benefits, as well as when the approach may not be helpful.