Would you believe that 70% of adults and 33% of youths in the United States have experienced a traumatic event leading to emotional stress and anxiety? (www.thenationalcouncil.org, 2013).

Exciting new information from a recent study published in “anxiety, stress and coping” an international journal and published on the NIH website, overseen by the Psychology Department at UCLA.  Promising signs that expressive writing could have a beneficial impact for those who struggle with anxiety by reducing levels in adults, with the greatest improvement witnessed in young adults.

The primary goal in this study was to examine the main effects of emotional expressive writing and calculate how each group faired throughout and at the end of the writing experiment within a set range of emotional variables. Gender, ethnicities, and sex also were contributing factors but played a much smaller role.

The experiment began with a group of 116 healthy adult participants of different ethnicities and genders between the ages of 18-40 with no significant health or psychiatric disorders and had been cleared by their physicians. These individuals also all had experienced a stressful situation within the last 5 years “rated as 5 or greater in stressfulness on a 7-point Likert scale (Likert, Rensis, 1932) (1=not at all stressful; 7=extremely stressful).” mentioned by author, Andrea N. Niles. MA, Ph.D. from UCLA. a clinical psychological scientist, chief science officer and co-founder of Youper AI.

The experiment began with session one of four, where individuals that were chosen to take part in the study were assigned 1 of 2 writing styles, which were expressive writing, or some other type of writing, thus splitting the entire group into two separate groups known as (1) expressive writing or (2) control group. The conditions of writing were as follows: “The two writing tasks to which participants were randomized involved: (1) describing their deepest thoughts and feelings regarding the “most stressful or traumatic experience during the past five years” (expressive writing) or (2) describing how they spent their time without expressing emotions or opinions (control).” Andrea N. Niles shares in her report.

All individuals wrote in four 20-minute sessions, with at least three days in-between sessions. Each person had to rate their feelings on three different symptom scales which included a depression, physical and anxiety scale to be taken within a set time following their first writing session followed by a second rating of their feelings at a different set time. Researchers would later compare time 1 to time 2 to note any changes. There were several other questionnaires that those participating would need to complete after the 8 weeks’ time they were given to finish their writing sessions. Once all data had been gathered by the team at UCLA, they began to go over their findings and build a report to share with the science community.

Researchers found that the group assigned to expressively write (group1) about their emotions had the largest improvement in their anxiety levels while those in the low expressive (group 2) had increased anxiety following the four sessions of writing.

Even just a few minutes of expressing your emotions on paper can be helpful rather than outward towards others or inward towards yourself which can have devastating impacts on your mind, body, or others around you. Why not give it a try?  Today is the day you could set free some of that stress, emotion, and anxiety resulting in a better happier YOU!