From the two-minute miracle to writing your memoirs—expressive writing holds the promise of health benefits
Life Writing is an organic process—living and vital—with interrelated functions. In simple terms, it’s anything you write about your life. Life Writing’s genres and practices include autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, letters, testimonies, autoethnography, personal essays and digital forms such as blogs and email [source: Wikipedia].
But what are the benefits of writing about your life…your experiences…your emotions…your thoughts? Author and life writer Sharon Lippincott says that results from three decades of research are clear: expressive writing is good for you, however you go about it. And research by Chad Burton and Laura King [opens to PDF] found that—amazingly—health benefits follow from just two minutes of written expression.
The challenge lies in finding a way to reap the maximum benefits within the bounds of your available time and interest, according to Sharon Lippincott.
We speak with Sharon Lippincott.
