Who Said Drugs Are Necessary?

For years Health Watch has argued that medical research should focus less on developing new drugs and more on learning about the body’s innate ability to achieve wellness.

That’s exactly what one team of researchers did, and their findings were amazing. According to their report, the simple act of writing down thoughts and feelings about particular stressful events can help persons with chronic conditions improve their health.

Asthma and arthritis patients who for several days wrote down their feelings about stressful events in their lives showed significant improvement in their condition during a four-month study. A comparison group of patients who wrote about their plans for the day improved only half as much, a team of scientists reported in the April 15, 1999 issue of the Journal of Medical Association.

“Although it may be difficult to believe that a brief writing task can meaningfully impact health, this study replicates in a chronically ill sample what a burgeoning literature indicates in healthy individuals,” said Joshua M. Smyth, PH.D., of the North Dakota State University Department of Psychology and Arthur A. Stone, PH.D., of the Department of Psychiatry at the State University of New York-Stony Brook, and their colleagues.

Previous studies showed that healthy individuals who perform similar writing tasks report fewer medical symptoms, greater well being, and less use of their health care services. Yet, until now, the impact of writing down thoughts and emotions had not been explored in people with such chronic health conditions as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, said Smyth and Stone.

The investigation found that 48 asthma patients and 35 arthritis patients write for 20 minutes on three consecutive days about the most stressful experience in their lives. A comparison group of 22 asthma patients and 21 arthritis patients wrote instead about their plans for the day. All the patients continued with their regular medical care and their condition was evaluated after two weeks, two months, and four months.

The investigation found that 47% of the patients who wrote about their feelings showed clinical improvement after four months, compared with 24% of those in the control group.

The asthma patients who wrote about their stressful events had a 19% increase I lung function, on average, whereas those in the comparison group showed no change, Arthritis patients who wrote about stressful events showed a 28% average reduction in the severity of their disease, while those in the comparison group exhibited no change.

The investigators said it remains unclear why writing about one’s feelings is effective medicine. In previous research, healthy persons who completed the task and found it emotionally upsetting, but showed positive changes in various physiological health measures, including heart rate, blood pressure, and immune function.

“It is possible that such affective of physiological responses can explain our results,” stated the investigators.

Alternatively, it is possible that the writing task changes the way people thought and remembered previous stressful events in their lives, and helped them cope with new stressful events.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association “Writing Your Feeling: Good Medicine for chronic Conditions.” Center for the Advancement of Health, April 13, 1999