Using writing as a way to calm anxiety

People often ask me if there are some simple writing techniques that they can begin to use to calm anxiety?

I have two suggestions that can help you to get started, which involve taking two slightly different approaches. I’d recommend experimenting with each of them to find what works best for you.

I don’t believe that there is ever a magical ‘one size fits all’ approach to using writing for your wellbeing. But over time - and often a surprisingly short period of time - you can get a feel for what is most helpful for you in your current circumstances.

Just write
Peter Elbow’s free writing, Julia Cameron’s morning pages, James Pennebaker’s expressive writing, Natalie Goldberg’s ‘keeping the hand moving’… What all these techniques have in common is that the idea of just writing, without pausing, editing or thinking too much, allowing our thoughts to free flow onto the page, can be beneficial to us.

Some people find it useful to set a timer for ten minutes (sometimes called timed free writing). The morning pages approach advocates writing three pages every morning, right after you wake up. Pennebaker’s expressive writing paradigm - currently the most widely researched approach to writing and wellbeing - typically asks people to write for twenty minutes about something that is troubling them.

What are the positive effects of the ‘just write’ approach for our wellbeing?
The ‘just write’ approach can boost our creativity by helping us to bypass those internal critical voices that can keep us stuck. One theory is that just writing, without over-thinking or editing as we go, can help us to find our ‘flow,’ the term coined by psychologist Cszikszentmihalyi to describe that optimum ‘peak’ state or ‘zone’ in which we are fully absorbed in a task that we love.

Many people also find that writing is a helpful way of processing thoughts, feelings and emotions. As Joan Didion once wrote:

‘I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.’

– Why I Write (New York Times Book Review, 1976)

How does writing achieve these effects?
After many years of research into Pennebaker’s expressive writing, which does appear to show some positive effects across a range of situations and health challenges, we still can’t say with any certainty why just writing - or more specifically, writing for ten or twenty minutes about something that is troubling us - can be so beneficial for some people.

One theory is that expressive writing is effective because of what Pennebaker calls a ‘disinhibition effect.’ This is the idea that holding difficult experiences inside us demands effort and can create stress and overwhelm; and getting them ‘out there ‘ onto the page might bring ease and a sense of release.

This certainly seems to be the case for many people at certain times in their lives.

Is the ‘just write’ approach appropriate for everyone?
One of my own personal concerns about expressive writing is that the effects on people writing about a traumatic or painful experience are not yet very well understood. If you are suffering from the effects of severe trauma or PTSD, for example, revisiting these kinds of experiences through your own writing could revivify them, exacerbating symptoms such as flashbacks. In this situation, it is advisable to work with someone who is experienced enough to help you to select a particular approach to writing, such as a skilled therapist.

In my experience, even when people are not traumatised, they can be surprised and unsettled by what surfaces in their writing. If this happens for you, it’s important to be able to talk to a friend, therapist or someone you can trust. If you’re feeling anxious or upset and you’re not sure exactly why, writing might help you to uncover or identify the source of that anxiety. But it’s important to then have a way of processing that new information and the associated feelings.

Currently, we know that writing can be a very powerful means of nurturing wellbeing, through exploring and gaining new insights into our thoughts, feelings and experience, getting it ‘out there’ and developing confidence in our creativity. But we don’t really have enough information yet about for whom different approaches to writing might be most effective and when; or, more importantly, the situations where writing could actually make people feel worse rather than better.

Some people may find a more structured approach to writing more beneficial, such as writing techniques designed to create helpful distance from difficult experiences and memories.

Experiment with the ‘just write’ approach if:
You feel that you have enough support around you that you can talk through anything that comes up for you in your writing process.

You feel that your notebook or journal is a safe place to vent, or get your feelings of anxiety out onto the page.

When to avoid ‘just writing’ about difficult feelings
If you’re experiencing severe anxiety or feeling very anxious about something in particular, avoid writing about the thing that is troubling you and try writing about something that will distract you from your feelings instead. That way, you may still get all the benefits of finding ‘flow’ and expressing your creativity, without revisiting any difficult memories or events. When you’re feeling anxious, you might find the ‘writing the moment’ exercise below more helpful than ‘just writing.’

Writing the moment
Some people find that the act of writing can help them to slow down, and take some time out from the pressures of every day life. This can have a calming effect. In this sense, writing might act a little like meditation or mindfulness practice.

You might like to try writing about what you see outside your window right now; or what you notice in your room; or the objects that you see on your desk or from the bus on the way to work.

Begin by describing what you see as clearly as you can. Really look. Bring your full attention to the process of noticing and describing.

Again, don’t think about editing as you go. Simply write. This writing is just for you and it really doesn’t matter if you don’t write perfectly formed sentences.

You could experiment with writing about the view from the same window, or the same spot on your walk in the park every day for a week. What changes? What stays the same?

Tips:
If you can, experiment with using a pen and paper rather than a screen.

Set yourself small goals. Write for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, rather than an hour.

Don’t beat yourself up if some days writing feels easier than others. Let the page be your friend rather than yet another critical voice in your head. Remember too that so many of the benefits of writing derive from the process of writing, rather than what you actually write. Let your messy, imperfect, un thought-through writing emerge.

Think about how you can incorporate some free writing into other practices that support your wellbeing, such as breath work, meditation and mindfulness, gentle exercise and yoga.

Sophie Nicholls is a bestselling author, teacher and writing mentor, researching the connections between writing and wellbeing.

She writes a weekly newsletter at: sophienicholls.substack.com