Six weeks ago, I started to read Matthew McConaughey’s autobiographical book “Greenlights.” On the 15th page it was said that he started to write a diary when he was fifteen years old, and now he has a lot of notes with his life experience. And I really like the way he describes the process of reading his old notes:
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries and have a look at the thirty-five years of writing about who I’ve been over the last fifty. And you know what? I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would. I laughed, I cried, I realized I had remembered more than I expected, and forgot less.
After that, I decided to start my own diary to experience those same feelings when I read it in the future. But later I realized it also brings many unexpected benefits to my life.
Why?
To start doing something, a person should have an answer to one simple question: “Why?” And the main reason for starting my diary, as I already said, was that I wanted the same interesting feelings when I read it. But as soon as I started to write notes, I noticed other surprising benefits of the habit. The first positive effect I noticed on the first day of writing. The key point of the effect is that when you write about negative experiences, you stop thinking about that all the time. I had heard about that a lot and even tried to write a diary several times for the effect, but I always made three mistakes:
- I was afraid that someone would read my notes, and because of that, I wasn’t absolutely honest.
- I thought about grammar during writing, which is not needed and even bad for mental benefits.
- I didn't write enough because you need to write until you have no words to say about your pain.
The next positive effect was improving the formulation of thoughts. Seems like it is obvious, but it was surprising for me that I can train that skill anywhere just with my phone, and I see some progress in that. And also I like when I do something that has positive effects on a lot of life aspects.
And the last positive aspect is that I feel better about my time. I don’t feel like my summer break started just yesterday, because I remember much more of the positive and negative things that happened during the summer.
Science of the Diary
I like when something is science-based, and I decided to do some quick research to find out why it's working like it's working. And I have found that: Written Emotional Expression: Effect Sizes, Outcome Types, and Moderating Variables. This is a beautiful study in which the author analyzed 14 pieces of research and concluded that expressive writing (they named it that way) really has all these positive aspects on my life, and it wasn't just my ill self-deception.
| Outcome Type | d (Cohen’s) | Approx. % Change |
|---|---|---|
| Overall effect | 0.472 | ≈ 24% improvement |
| Reported Health | 0.421 | ≈ 21% |
| Psychological well-being | 0.661 | ≈ 33% |
| Physiological functioning | 0.681 | ≈ 34% |
| General functioning | 0.331 | ≈ 17% |
| Health behaviors | 0.029 | ≈ 1% (no significant effect) |
And here are the main benefits of expressive writing. But what? Do you see that? 34% improvement in physiological functioning. It is very surprising. I didn't expect to see significant improvements in this aspect of life. The author of the study said that the sample of physiological functioning wasn't very big, but it motivated me to write more anyway.
How do I write?
Everything is very simple. I use Obsidian, which is available on all platforms. And in the app I create a new page that is dedicated to a specific week and just write. On average I write 7,000 characters per week, but in the study they were writing 4-5 times per week for 15-20 minutes per session. It seems like a lot, but I think that it's worth that.
Remember: therapy is expensive, but regret is freeeee.
