7 Powerful Benefits Of Writing For Mental Health & Peace

Are you seeking peace from within? Here are 7 benefits of writing for mental health, that’ll help you to pour your heart out and focus on peace.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

It is undeniable that people living in the 21st Century have more issues of stress than those belonging to the previous generations.

We are mostly boggled by the thoughts of making a good career, balancing work & personal life, focusing on our family life, and finding some time for ourselves, to indulge in our passions.

There’s always a chase – for happiness, for success, for a good life, and more. And amidst all of these, we somewhere have been losing out our mental peace and falling victims of anxiety issues.

To add to that, the pandemic completely turned the world upside down, pushing us all to stay indoors for months, until recently, when we could again step out (but with considerable precautions, to stop getting infected and contain the spreading of the virus).

I also suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for some time and had to seek guidance from a therapist.

During my therapy sessions, I realized that in spite of being extremely extroverted, I often succumbed to expressing my deeper insecurities.

Finally, journaling helped me to get those thoughts out on paper and helped me to assess myself in better lights.

I can understand if you feel that writing is not your thing – but I’m not asking you to write stories on a daily basis.

Start with small steps, maybe pointers – and write about what’s going on in your mind, now. What is making you sad? Or happy? What’s causing restlessness?

Is there something that you feel like telling someone but not sure how to express? Write.

Let the words flow. Slowly, you’ll feel comfortable with the act of journaling – until you reach a point where you’d know that writing will actually help you in finding mental peace.

Once you get used to expressing yourself, you’ll get accustomed to the following benefits of writing for mental health.

Benefits of Writing For Mental Health are:

1) Writing helps to prioritize and focus on your thoughts.

In today’s date, life has become immensely complicated and there are endless thoughts encircling our minds.

When we write, we are able to articulate our thoughts in a better way and focus on our priorities, thus reducing the levels of anxiety and stress.

If we constantly write about our thoughts, we will never get out of sight of what we want to achieve and what our dreams are made up of.

2) Writing helps to communicate with clarity.

Unlike talking, when we write, we tend to look for more sophisticated words and expressions to describe what we have in mind.

This helps us to build a structure that will allow us to express ourselves better and communicate complex ideas in a much more effective way.

3) Writing makes us more productive.

If I talk about myself, I’m someone who procrastinates a lot and I often tend to keep things for the last minute.

But if I write my schedule down, and have it in front of my eyes, then I am always conscious of the work I’ve to finish and thus, end up being more productive.

Scientific research has proved that writing activates the neurons in our brain and gets it ready to overcome the rest of the tasks (you can use it as a kind of warm-up at the beginning of the day).

Writing is more like a warm-up activity for the brain. In addition, writing down our tasks with the appropriate words usually prepares us to carry them out properly.

4) Writing helps in raising awareness of our reality.

Often, we are scared to speak out about our deepest feelings that make us vulnerable. But if we write down what we have in mind each day, what we expect to achieve, and how we feel about ourselves, we won’t need to consult a psychologist to explain who we are or suffer from anxiety attacks. We will be more aware of reality in general.

5) Writing helps us in better decision making.

We are often stuck in a decision-making dilemma, wonder what step we should take and what would be good for us.

As we write, we clear up our thoughts and, obviously, clearer thinking allows us to make better choices and make sound decisions about life.

6) Writing helps to overcome tough moments faster.

It is usually the difficult days that add more stress to our lives. We often drown ourselves thinking of the challenges that life throws at us.

Research suggests that those who write about what is happening in life can overcome tough moments quicker than those who don’t.

Also, if we look back and flip through the pages, we’ll feel good about ourselves and how we’ve dealt with the tough days.

7) Writing helps to deal with sleep disturbances.

While beginning the day with writing makes us more productive, ending the day with writing will cure sleep disturbances.

As the day ends, our minds are heavy with the thoughts of the day, and often, we keep drooling over things that happened, things that didn’t go as we wanted it to be, so on and so forth.

Consider keeping a journal beside your bed, and allot 15 minutes every night to writing down your thoughts about the day.

If there are things that are stressing you out, getting them down on paper to acknowledge them may help to alleviate the anxiety so you can get some rest.

To put it in the words of Louis L’Amour, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

Thus, it’s never too late to start writing. Just pick up a notebook and a pen. Make sure to write every day and you’ll eventually have a record of your thoughts.