Great read: The Secret Life of Pronouns, What Our Words Say About Us

I just bought this book by James W. Pennebaker – started reading it – and can’t get enough! I became a certified Journal Writing instructor – and am striving to bring the power of Journal Writing to Montreal in a big way –  because I thoroughly believe that keeping a journal is an unsurpassed holistic method FOR EVERYONE toward health, well-being, clarity, relationship building, career-building, stress relief, mindfulness, inner peace, creativity… you name it!

Pennebaker validates this so many times over. He is  one of the ‘fathers’ of research into the healing powers of writing. This is one of many books and studies he has published. Here’s a little excerpt from the first chapter, Discovering the Secret Life of the Most Forgettable Words:

“We began running experiments where people were asked to write about traumatic experiences for 15 to 20 minutes a day for thre or four consecutive days. Compared to people who were told to write about non-emotional topics, those who wrote about trauma evidenced improved physical health. Later studies found that emotional writing boosted immune function, brought about drops in blood pressure, and reduced feelings of depression and elevated daily moods. Now, over 25 years after the first writing experiment, more than two hundred similar wiring studies have been conducted all over the world. While the effects are often modest, the mere act of translating emotional upheaval sitno words is consistely associated with improvements in physicand and mental health.”

I’ll keep sharing as I keep reading. And you keep writing!

Visit http://www.wholelisticjournaling.com to see when my Journal to the Self® Workshops are scheduled.  If you’d like to schedule one for your organization, club, or group of friends – contact me as: jill@wholelisticjournaling.com

ABOUT JAMES W. PENNEBAKER: Regents Centennial Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin. A pioneer in the use of computer-based text analysis to study psychology, he is the author of Writing to Heal and Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, which has been translated into a dozen languages. His findings have been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American, the Washington Post, the Guardina, and many other publications around the world.  For more about Pennebaker’s work, or to analyze your own language, visit http://www.SecretLifeOfPronouns.com

Blessings and Happy Inklings!

Jill Founder/Instructor, Wholelistic Journaling Ink