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The 25 women who had gathered in a windowless Seattle classroom for a writing workshop scribbled furiously for more than two hours in response to instructor Rachel M. Fiala’s “prompts.” In 10-minute sprints they wrote about difficult goodbyes in their lives, about their definitions of beauty, about what the sound of rain reminded them of. At the end of class Rachel gave her students an exercise in self-expression and self-discovery known as expressive writing: Over the next four days, for 20 uninterrupted minutes each day, write down your deepest feelings about an emotional upheaval in your life. Tonya Wilson, one of the most enthusiastic students in the class, would write about her mother abandoning her when she was 13. “The exercise was powerful,” she says. “I got to witness myself as that shattered 13-year-old.” Two years have passed since that writing assignment, but, Tonya says, “Talking about it today I can still feel the lump in my throat. I still mourn for that young girl and I think I always will, but now there is someone mourning for her rather than stuffing her in a closet and refusing to acknowledge her existence and her pain.” That first expressive writing assignment spurred a life-changing turnaround for Tonya. It all took place at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, the state prison where she has been serving time for attempted murder in the first degree since 2002. The Power of Personal Storytelling Expressive writing is a highly structured storytelling technique that guides people to describe their deepest worries and most troubling memories, find new meanings in these experiences and then go on to envision bolder and happier futures for themselves. It was developed in the mid-’80s by researcher James (Jamie) W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., now the Regents Centennial Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who was investigating the health impact of a wide range of traumatic experiences—the death of a spouse, natural disasters, sexual or physical abuse, divorce, the Holocaust. He discovered that writing about these traumas in an open and emotional way led to significant improvements in both physical and psychological well-being. Over the past 30 years hundreds of studies have confirmed the benefits of expressive writing. It helps reduce cancer-related symptoms and fatigue, increases immune functioning. leads to fewer doctor visits and enhances memory and sleep. College students who took part in expressive writing improved their grades and were less likely to drop out. Married couples who explored their conflicts through expressive writing were happier in their marriages than their non-writing counterparts. When asthma patients tried it, their lung functions improved while patients with rheumatoid arthritis showed better joint mobility. Putting pen to paper helped veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress better regulate their emotions; their moods improved, their stress levels declined and they were more likely to experience post-traumatic growth. What’s more, expressive writing enhances your well-being in both the short and long term. Immediately after writing about an emotional topic, people had lower blood pressure and heart rates. That was still true months later. Likewise, symptoms of depression, anxiety and rumination declined in the weeks and months after writing about emotional upheavals. Expressive writing can even improve your social life. In an innovative study that Jamie led in 2001, each participant was asked to wear a small tape recorder before and after writing about a deep-seated emotional issue. The results showed that in the weeks after the writing experiences, people were more outgoing, laughed more easily and more often and used more positive emotion words. Writing from a deeply personal place, Jamie concluded, seemed to make people more socially adept: “they were better listeners, talkers—indeed, better friends and partners. How to Do It Expressive writing follows six simple steps: 1. Set aside at least 20 minutes over four consecutive days for writing. Try to write at the same time each day. The best time to write is when you’re not feeling hurried. You can write in a notebook, a pad, a computer. 2.   Write about the issues, conflicts, stressors or upheavals that are keeping you up at night. That can be something that’s happening in the here and now or an experience from the past that still troubles you. (If you’ve faced a huge loss or trauma in the last couple of weeks, it may be too soon for you to write about it.) 3.  Write continuously once you begin. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. If you want to keep writing after 20 minutes, go ahead. But plan to write for a minimum of 20 minutes. 4.  Really let go and write about your deepest thoughts and feelings around the issue or event you’ve chosen. You can write about the same topic every day or different topics. Explore how the event is tied to other areas of your life—your childhood; people you’ve most loved, feared or felt the most anger toward; your relationships with friends and family; your work life. 5. On your final day of writing, reflect on what you’ve disclosed over the previous three days. How can the meaningful story you’ve constructed help guide your thoughts and behaviors moving forward? Write about how the event is related to who’d you like to become. 6.  Think of expressive writing as a tool that’s always available to you. While it doesn’t replace medical or psychological help when you’re going through a true crisis, a “booster session” can be helpful when you find yourself stymied by a work or personal challenge. The Science Behind the Stories What is it about expressive writing that makes it so effective? “It’s complicated,” researchers say. Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., is a professor of biobehavioral health and medicine at Penn State and co-author with Jamie of the upcoming book Opening Up by Writing It Down, Third Edition: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain. “It seems to help a lot of things a little bit,” Joshua says. It helps people regulate emotions a bit. It helps social relationships a bit. It helps people find their purpose in life a bit, and so on. These small changes feed off one another and over time it leads to big improvements in well-being.” Timothy D. Wilson, Ph.D., the Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and author of Redirect: Changing the Stories We Live By, sees expressive writing as one technique of what he calls “story editing.” We all have personal narratives, he says, about what the world is like and who we are. Sometimes we develop pessimistic stories and get caught in self-defeating thinking. Revising our stories can help us view events through more optimistic lenses and that, in turn, can lead to positive and lasting changes. “Expressive writing helps us reframe events and our history,” Timothy says. “When you try out a different interpretation that shows in your behavior and your attitude and when you realize a payoff, you build on that new behavior.” This type of writing goes deeper than what most of us think about as journaling. That certainly was the case for John F. Evans, who leads expressive writing workshops at Wellness & Writing Connections in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He’s also the co-author with Jamie of Expressive Writing: Words That Heal. But before he became familiar with Jamie’s work, John had maintained a journal, on and off, through high school, college and early adulthood. During these years he suffered from depression and it wasn’t until he was 40 that he took his first expressive writing workshop. He wrote about something that had remained a never-discussed family secret: the death of his sister when he was 3 years old. Though he would also seek out psychotherapy, the writing, John says, was the beginning of emotional restoration. “I was able to write about my deepest feelings, construct a meaningful narrative and then write about how I wanted to go forward,” he says. “It gave me a measure of control over my life.” That sense of control and narrative was missing from his journals. “When I went back and re-read them,” he says, “I realized they were mainly a place to vent. I kept writing about the same thing in the same way, using the same language. There was no arc in my story; it was a flat line. I was just ruminating on paper.” People who benefit the most from expressive writing use certain types of words throughout the exercise. Their writing includes more positive emotion words, such as love, funny, joy, courageous, calm and thankful, indicating that even while they’re acknowledging painful experiences they’re able to see the upsides. As they move from the first day of writing through the fourth, they go from using mostly first-person pronouns (I, me, mine) to incorporating he, she and they; that shows they’re viewing their emotional upheavals from different perspectives. And, as the days pass, they also sprinkle their writings with words like understand, realize and know, evidence that they’re able to find meaning in loss or distress. When we’re able to “repackage” a stressful event into coherent stories, a couple of important things happen. First, we move toward a sense of resolution that gradually diminishes the power and pain of the disturbing experiences. (Those of us who are brooders and ruminators are especially likely to benefit from expressive writing.) Secondly, we’re less likely to experience intrusive thoughts about the experiences, the kind that disturb our sleep, wreck our focus and even make us less able to stay connected with other people. It’s the equivalent of shutting down those apps that run in the background on our smartphones draining battery life and slowing performance. Closing the Circle Two months after she began serving her sentence, Tonya, in wrist and ankle shackles, would attend the funeral of her mother, who died of her decades-long drug addiction. From her first expressive writing assignment through many more, Tonya struggled to understand and forgive her mother. As she wrote she began to heal. “Expressive writing,” she says, “allowed me to see that my life has a purpose and my pain has a purpose.” She began to see her future as working toward prison reform and real, effective rehabilitation for inmates and others at the margins of society, including addicts. Transformation, she says, can take place only within a support system that sees the value and promise of every life and where people have a stake in each other’s success. In 2015, Tonya described her vision in a poetic and passionate TEDx talk. “True rehabilitation,” she said, “occurs through connections with others. Every time I’ve gotten better it’s because I’ve seen the possibility of healing or strength in another person. Every time I’ve been the model for someone else, lives have changed.” She would conclude her talk to a standing ovation. “Don’t underestimate the value of your own story simply because there is suffering it in,” Tonya said. “You may just be the catalyst for someone else’s rehabilitation. Continue with patience, with compassion and with an open heart." This article originally appeared in the June 2016 edition of Live Happy magazine.

Whether dealing with a major life-shattering event or a small bump in the road, gratitude can help boost our happiness and change our outlook. While it won’t change our circumstances, experts say it can change how we feel about them. “Gratitude is a core part of each of us,” explains Ryan Niemiec, Psy.D., education director for Cincinnati’s VIA Institute on Character. “Gratitude is easy to tap into, and when you tap into that strength, it’s truly energizing.” Research on gratitude during the past 15 years has shown that it has many benefits—physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s been found to improve job performance, strengthen marriages and friendships, and enhance overall wellbeing. It is linked to stronger immune systems, lowered blood pressure, greater compassion and lowered stress levels. Gratitude also provides us with greater optimism and can increase happiness by as much as 25 percent. The research pointing to gratitude’s benefits, as well as the increased attention it has been receiving, have encouraged many people to begin incorporating it into their daily lives, Ryan says. Part of its appeal is how simple it is to apply: “Just count your blessings. Write down things you’re thankful for. Say ‘thank you’ more. Write a gratitude letter to someone—all of these are things that are easy to identify with and easy to do.” Your Brain on Gratitude People’s definitions of gratitude vary—some call it an attitude, some call it an action, some call it an emotion. It’s one of VIA’s 24 character strengths and falls under the category of “transcendence,” which encompasses strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide our lives with meaning. What’s interesting about gratitude, says Christina Karns, Ph.D., a research associate at the University of Oregon, is that all those definitions are correct. “It really is more than one thing,” she says. “As an emotion, it is complex and is made up of other emotions. Gratitude feels good—it is rewarding—but it’s also humbling [when you] consider what others have done for us.” Studies are showing that people with higher gratitude levels experience more activity in the hypothalamus, which is the “control center” for everything from functions like eating, drinking and sleeping to metabolism and stress levels. Like other feel-good emotions such as love and compassion, gratitude releases a rush of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that makes us feel great both physically and emotionally. That’s why, scientists say, it improves sleep, lessens physical discomfort, and lowers stress and anxiety. It also helps create what they call a “virtuous cycle”—as you get the feel-good rush of gratitude, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for, hoping to get that next rush. The more we look for (and find) things we’re grateful for, the more we realize how blessed we are. After practicing gratitude for years and seeing how it improved her life and helped her through hard times, Christina began researching how it affects the way our brains are wired and how gratitude affects our reward systems. Her current research, which will be published in 2015, studies the key changes gratitude creates in the brain. She uses functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to show which regions of the brain are affected by gratitude. Her research shows that gratitude relies on and triggers multiple brain systems, so she now is studying how gratitude-based exercises can change our behavior, brain responses and improve our connections with other people. “It’s fascinating how much [we] can change what our brain processes moment to moment, and how those changes can affect the wiring of the brain long term,” she says. While her studies have not yet identified how long an act of gratitude affects the brain, or if that effect can be prolonged, one thing has become clear: “Gratitude will make lasting changes in the brain—but only if you keep practicing!” Consistency is key, experts agree. Robert Emmons, Ph.D., of the University of California, Davis, has shown that people who keep a gratitude journal significantly increase their wellbeing over time, something he attributes to the way it makes us focus on the positives rather than the negatives. It helps us overcome what psychologists call our negativity bias, the natural tendency to remember negative experiences over positive ones. “When we become more grateful, it helps us focus on what is important to us,” explains Louis Alloro of the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program in Philadelphia. “We are conditioned to focus on what’s not working rather than looking at what is working. Gratitude changes what we look at and how we see it.” In fact, one Gallup study reports that more than 90 percent of American teens and adults said expressing gratitude made them “somewhat” or “extremely” happy. This same mindset is backed up by numerous studies showing the link between gratitude and an emotionally fulfilling life, personal growth, forgiveness, hope, optimism and even global positive effect. In Sickness and in Health Since much of the attention given to gratitude looks at emotional benefits and how it boosts an already healthy immune system, far less is known about the role of gratitude in people who are already sick. That led Fuschia Sirois, Ph.D., a professor in the department of psychology at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke, Quebec, to research how gratitude affects people with chronic illness. Her co-author on the study, Alex Wood, Ph.D., director of the Behavioral Science Centre at the Stirling Management School at the University of Stirling in Scotland, studied gratitude as a tool for wellbeing in healthy individuals—then wondered if it would be similarly beneficial for those with ongoing health challenges. “Research tends to focus on the negative consequences of living with illness rather than how people can live well and flourish with chronic illness,” Fuschia says. What their studies found was that noticing “all the small but positive things in one’s life is key for enhancing happiness and wellbeing. When this becomes habitual, it can improve mood and adjustment.” Fuschia and Alex compared patients who practiced gratitude with those who practice “benefit finding,” which involves looking at what they have gained from their experience. The researchers found the gratitude group enjoyed significantly greater wellbeing and were less vulnerable to depression. “This is very important for individuals living with chronic illness, as [their] depression rates tend to be much higher compared to those without ongoing health issues,” she says. And, with further research, she said gratitude may be studied as an accompaniment to traditional medicine for overcoming health challenges in the future. In more than a dozen studies conducted since 2003, gratitude has consistently been shown to lower the incidence of eating disorders, anxiety, phobias, dependence on drugs, alcohol and nicotine—among other ailments. Additional studies indicate that practicing gratitude has even helped Vietnam War veterans overcome post-traumatic stress disorder. Outcomes have been so positive that Todd Kashdan, Ph.D., of George Mason University, believes further research is needed to see how gratitude could be used to help survivors of other types of trauma heal and thrive. The evidence for gratitude’s role in a happy life is substantial, but Louis teaches that it’s important to do more than just “be” grateful. He advises taking it a step further and “feeling” gratitude each time you express it. “It is key to feel it in your heart instead of keeping it in your mind,” he says. “When you say you’re grateful for something, it’s very often something that happened in the past—even if it was earlier that day. So I encourage people to not just say why they’re grateful, but to take a moment to remember how they felt when that was happening.” Taking time to feel that appreciation again gives that ever-important rush of dopamine, immediately increasing blood flow and activity. Basically, we emotionally re-enact the experience that made us feel grateful, and in doing so, we instantly generate healing, positive feelings. “It takes a little more time and more effort,” Louis says, “but you’ll see such a difference in the way it affects you." This article originally appeared in the December 2014 edition of Live Happy magazine.

Are negative people deeper and more evolved than positive people? There’s a cultural myth that the darker a person is, the deeper and more thoughtful he or she must be. But actually, modern research proves that wrong. Seeing the negative is actually done using our brain's most primitive part, which is in charge of responding to threats. The rest of the brain, which evolved around that primitive part, is the area that lets you scan the world for meaning and gratitude. So people stuck in brooding states are in fact not more evolved, they are using the most ancient parts of their minds. In today’s information-saturated world, it’s common to get caught in this trap. Negative noise is everywhere in our society and in the news, and the effect on us can clearly be measured. A study on the effects of media shows that people who watch local news see their city as significantly more dangerous than it actually is in terms of anticipated amounts of crime or likelihood of disaster. Letting this kind of noise into our minds can create a picture of the world that is full of danger, mistrust and gloom. As our brain works to make sense of the world, we feel compelled to first process the threats, and only after that can we turn our attention to the positive, meaningful parts of life. From a neuroscience perspective therefore, the deepest, most evolved people are the ones who can control and sift through the noise and fear to perceive the beauty and meaning in this world. Decreasing the amount of noise has huge advantages, as it has been connected with an increase in optimism and creativity. Some of the most respected thinkers from history stepped away from the noise —including their own noisy thoughts—and that led to incredible breakthroughs. In 1905, a frustrated Albert Einstein, who had been wrestling with inconsistencies with Newtonian physics, decided to give up thinking about it. On his way home one day on a streetcar in Bern, Switzerland, he looked up at the clock tower, and one of the most important ideas in history hit him: Time is not the same everywhere in the universe. This thought that changed everything we know about how the universe works flourished in the midst of a quiet mind. Canceling the noise was the first step. Seeing the world through a positive lens is not just important for our minds, it can save us from the damaging effects of negativity and stress on our bodies. Beyond the effects we often hear about, researchers from the University of California have now also found that anxiety and stress destroy the proteins, called telomeres, at the end of our chromosomes. The change dramatically speeds the aging process. And there is also new research to show that work exhaustion and worry can speed aging as well. It makes us think twice about the information we consciously allow to enter our brain. In Before Happiness, one of us (Shawn) looks at how to decrease the negative and extraneous noise using a strategy called Noise Canceling. Much like noise-canceling headphones, using this technique helps you cut out useless information to find the signal. In most cases, the signal we are all searching for is one that points to a life filled with hopefulness, meaning and happiness. This month, we invite you to try out a noise-canceling experiment in your life. Cut 5 percent of the noise you’re typically exposed to during the day. For instance, try decreasing the information flow just a little bit in your day by turning down the radio for the first five minutes of your commute, muting the commercials during one TV show, or taking two minutes to meditate in the middle of your workday. These very small changes create a leverage point where your brain can find the positive signal. Once you have canceled some noise, a great way to activate the evolved parts of your brain is to take a few minutes to engage in a positive habit that has been shown in our research to raise levels of happiness and wellbeing. For instance, try emailing yourself five things you feel positive about—your children, your values, your faith. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that when people wrote about their positive feelings for a few minutes they significantly lowered their levels of worry and pessimism. And not only did it decrease anxiety, it raised performance on tests of memory and critical skills by 10 to 15 percent. A simple activity such as writing down your gratitude or journaling for two minutes each day about a positive memory helps you see more of the meaning in your life. And since you’ve cut out some of the negativity and noise, you have more brain resources to devote to the positive side of life. We can’t promise noise canceling will help you come up with an idea as life-changing as Einstein’s, but it should help you make more room for the parts of your life that make it worth living...and that can be life-changing in itself. This article originally appeared in the April 2015 edition of Live Happy magazine.