Just Do It -- Postscript
Write Your Life Story for Posterity
By Maureen Santini © Copyright 2017-2025. All Rights Reserved.
Yesterday I wrote about research claiming that writing about stressful life events can benefit physical and mental health. Many individual studies have been conducted on various aspects of this topic.
My newsletter was based on a 2021 publication called The Health Benefits of Autobiographical Writing: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, by Jussi Valtonen, a neuropsychologist.
I found the research fascinating and enormously useful but complicated by so many threads of study.
Keep in mind that (1) expressive writing does not necessarily benefit everyone, (2) that expressive writing may work best in a structured environment such as one led by a therapist although there are plenty of examples of it working for individuals, and (3) that studies about benefits often are couched in terms of groups, not necessarily individuals, but again there are many examples of individual benefits.
Research on this topic has branched out since 2021, now including research on positive and guided writing as well as stressful experience writing.
Recent research also supports the idea that benefits are positive even though they are not universal. Theories as to why these benefits occur are still unsettled.
For anyone interested in more information, the full study can be found here: The Health Benefits of Autobiographical Writing: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.
Here is the opening paragraph:
”The Nobel-winning author Imre Kertész, who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald when he was young, describes writing as essential in helping him survive. Although he would carry the experience with him throughout his life, it was writing that enabled Kertész to live with the emotional and existential repercussions of the "Auschwitz disease," according to literary scholar Luísa Afonso Soares (2015). "After having written the novel I’ve almost stopped thinking about my experience in the concentration camp: it became my character’s experience. I’m free and empty," Kertész describes the writing of his novel, Fatelessness.”
Have you ever tried to write about stressful experiences? How did it work out? Comment below.
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Maureen Santini is a PR strategist and former journalist whose goal is to prevent the life stories of millions from ending up in the graveyard.
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