← The Nightly
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- [00:01]
A
Audio for sleep by hatch. Hello and good evening everyone. I'm Josh. Welcome to the Nightly from Hatch where your late night thoughts go to rest. As you know, every Sunday we do a deep dive on a topic that a caller brought to us during the week and we find an expert to talk to about that subject. This week we are going to jump off from a conversation I had with a caller named Sophia earlier this week. She wanted to talk about journaling as her nightly ritual and how that helps her feel ready for bed and the kind of techniques she uses to really dig in on what sometimes becomes a creative writing enterprise and expressive. I thought it'd be really fun and exciting to bring in a researcher who studies the impact of journaling on your mind. And so tonight I'm going to talk to Dr. James Pennebaker. He is a professor emeritus of Psychology at UT Austin. He has authored 12 books and over 300 articles. And his early work on expressive writing, which we'll learn more about, found out that physical health and work performance can improve simply by writing and or talking exercises. So I'm so excited to hear more about journaling from a true expert in the field. Welcome to the pillow fort, Dr. Pennebaker. Thanks for being here.
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B
Well, it's nice to be here. Thank you.
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A
Thank you. May I ask real quick right up top, how did you get involved in like the psychology of journaling?
- [01:51]
B
It was actually a very roundabout journey. I started graduate school interested in the mind body problem. I looked at personalities related to health, type A behavior, and also how we come to know how we feel. People often feel like their heart is racing, but very often when you measure their heart rate, it's not going fast at all. Where do our physical symptoms come from? Because they're not good true mirrors of our internal state. So those were the questions I was interested in and this first study we did about in 1984 and it was amazing what happened. First of all, these were college students. They came in and they wrote about really horrifying things, things that anybody would agree is a traumatic experience. By the way, we had half the people write about a traumatic experience and the other half we had them write about superficial topics to create kind of a control group.
- [02:53]
A
Is that why so that you aren't seeing everybody doing the same thing?
- [02:59]
B
That's exactly right. That's right. And we got permission from everybody to track their how often they went to the student health center for illness. So I wanted to get objective measures of health. And what we found was that people who wrote about these traumatic experiences ended up going to the doctor for illness at about half the rate as people in our controlled conditions over the next several months. And these illnesses, by and large, were, you know, upper respiratory infections, colds, flus, headaches, stomach problems. In other words, after writing about traumatic experiences, these people felt healthier. And I also discovered in some later questionnaires that they tended to sleep better afterwards. And there have since been several studies showing that when people write about upsetting experiences, that they sleep better afterwards. So the person who you talked to this last week fits that perfectly, that when you write about upsetting experiences, it can be beneficial.
- [04:02]
A
Wow. So the findings are. It's not just the act of, like, writing down. Like, today I had a sandwich and I went to the mall or whatever. It is like, really getting in there under the hood and saying, like, this is really what's upsetting me and that. Or this is really what has been weighing on me. And that is the kind of thing that helps people feel healthier and sleep better.
- [04:25]
B
That's right. And then, wow. So here's what's interesting. That first study was published in 1986, and here we are 40 years later, and there have probably been 2,3000 studies done using expressive writing for all kinds of health problems, psychological problems. And so the story has become, I think, more interesting now that we look back and see the broader literature. And first of all, what writing is good for is if you are thinking about worrying about obsessing about something that you cannot easily talk about, that writing can be really beneficial. Writing about the same topic, it's good to do it for once, twice, three times, even four times. But after that, most people don't show any improvement. In fact, if you keep writing about that same upsetting experience, it's almost a form of rumination, and it could actually be not healthy for you.
- [05:32]
A
Our caller Sophia, who had called in, said that it felt like she was, like, getting something out when she would write about these feelings that she'd been having is that like, you kind of want to expel it and then not, like, really breathe in that air continuously.
- [05:46]
B
So that metaphor, generally, we find people who use that metaphor don't benefit much from writing.
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A
Interesting.
- [05:54]
B
The people who benefit hit the most, walk away saying, wow, I now realize that, or now I understand why. In other words, it is a learning experience. They figure something out. The people who say, I was able to blow off steam or get it off my back, those that metaphor really suggests that it might be temporarily beneficial, but they're not working through it because that, you know, so, for example, I write occasionally, not very often, maybe three, four, five times a year. And it's almost always, you know, that I've gotten into a fight with somebody or my wife and I have had some kind of stressful experience or I'm worried about God knows what. And I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll just come into my room and I'll just start writing and I'll write for until I stop, which is usually 10, 15, 30 minutes even. And then typically I'll go back and I'll go right to sleep. Because prior to that I've been obsessing and putting those thoughts and feelings into words in some way I think changes the way they're organized in our brain.
- [07:12]
A
Yeah, I have a couple questions about, like, the mechanics of how to do this and how it feels, how to make it feel the most beneficial. Right. And like, do you have any advice or thoughts about people who maybe feel like, self conscious about how to get started writing down their thoughts, especially if they're like really personal, difficult things they're still wrestling with?
- [07:36]
B
So what I generally tell people is, first of all, this writing is for you and you alone. And go on the assumption that you'll throw it away as soon as you're finished. And you could write by hand, you can do it on a computer, it doesn't matter. Whether or not you destroy it or not is really up to you. But the real idea is the way you write is not going to be judged by your high school English teacher. The way you write is not going to be assessed. So don't worry about spelling, don't worry about sentence structure. Don't try to impress yourself with your references to Socrates or, you know, your favorite philosopher.
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A
Sure.
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B
Write for yourself. So that. That's the first thing I'd say.
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A
Write for yourself.
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B
The second thing I tell people is when you start, just start writing. You don't need a plan, you don't need an outline, just start writing. And it could be, wow, it's two in the morning and I can't believe I'm up and I'm thinking about this problem I had at work with so and so and why she said this and I stupidly said that. In other words, just write about it. And in your writing, you might want to kind of describe what happened, but also always be asking yourself, why is this bothering me so much? What is this about me that is relevant? In other words, don't go in and say, now I realize that other person's a Worthless human being and I would like to run over her, etc. That's not helpful. The whole point of this is to look inward and understand why is this weighing on me so much? What is it about me? Is it related to other experiences I've had? What might those be?
- [09:30]
A
Right. Oh, that's so interesting. So it is like, on one hand, there's no real technique needed in the prose itself. Right. It doesn't have to be like quote unquote, good writing. It can be pretty simple or it could be run on sentences. But on the other hand, there are like, ways to interrogate yourself for like, why did I feel this way? That helps you get the most out of it. Is that an accurate summary?
- [09:57]
B
I think that's a perfect summary. And you know, you can write, you know handwriting and it can be so messy that even you can't read it. Who cares? You can talk into a tape recorder.
- [10:09]
A
I was about to ask about that. So it's not even the mechanism of like the physical writing as much as it is really being honest with yourself, whether it's written word or spoken word, about maybe discovering something about why you are feeling so unsettled.
- [10:26]
B
That's right. It's kind of. I often think of it as translating these upsetting experiences into words. In fact, one thing that I use sometimes for people is to do finger writing. So you just write in the air what you're thinking. And the studies I've done at workshops, that works as well as writing it down. In other words, it's that translation into words that I think is so central.
- [11:05]
A
You mentioned expressive writing as the kind of technique. Can you say a little bit more about what that means specifically?
- [11:12]
B
You know, it's funny because most therapies have a real official name and you can get official training by an official person and it's licensed or whatever. This is just writing. I call it expressive writing. So it's different from just regular old writing. But the idea of it is for you to write about issues that are bothering you. And should you write with your dominant hand or your non dominant hand? I don't know. Experiment. Should you. Could it be poetry? Sure, try it. Can you write it if you're bilingual? Could you write it in your native language versus English? Yeah, you try it. It doesn't matter. In other words. My approach is to be your own scientist, figure out what works for you. Because sometimes in my own experience, sometimes I'll get up in the middle of the night and I'll start writing and at the end, you know, I'll walk away thinking, that didn't do me a damn bit of good. And it probably didn't. And then the next night, I might try writing from another perspective. In other words, you're the person who's responsible for your own healing. Don't assume that a therapist or GPT knows all you know yourself best and do your own experiments, see what really is beneficial for you. So it's. It's a. It's a. So there's no licensure. I don't do workshops to train, to train people. There is no formal training for somebody to do this. Just do it.
- [12:54]
A
Sophia mentioned when she called in that she has found that kind of most effective form of writing. She said she had a little trouble kind of going head on right at what she was feeling. But she was writing in kind of like folklore, metaphor fiction. And that really felt good to her to, like, get things out through a fictional story. Is that something you've seen before in this kind of therapeutic writing?
- [13:18]
B
Actually, several years ago, there was a study that was done at Stony Brook where the investigators, in one condition, they wrote about a traumatic experience. And at the end, they were asked to summarize this traumatic experience in a. In a couple of sentences. And then they brought in another person who had not had that particular traumatic experience. And they were told, read these sentences, and I want you to imagine that this happened to you, really think that it did, and then write about it. Essentially do expressive writing about the time you ran over a dog, even though they never had run over a dog. What they found was that people who wrote about these imaginary traumas benefited almost as much as people who wrote about their own dramas.
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A
Wow.
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B
Because even though you haven't run over a dog, you have done something that hurts somebody or inadvertently crush them in some way. And in some ways, writing about. Even though it's different, it's still dealing with a lot of the same emotions.
- [14:32]
A
Yeah, right. You're latching onto something in what you read and then reflecting something back from your own experience, even though you haven't had that one to one. Wow. And what is it about the writing that helps in a way that just kind of thinking doesn't? Like, what about putting it down on paper or recording really helps people. People come to these realizations.
- [14:57]
B
So imagine that you are upset about something you haven't told them, but something bad happened to you yesterday or the day before. For me, I might be walking down the street and that image comes in my mind and I'll say, I should have said this I should have done this. And then you see an ice cream shot and you think, well, that looks really good. In other words, when you're thinking about something, you don't think about it in this really linear, fundamental, more formal way. What writing does is it forces some structure. In other words, when you start writing and you're in the middle of a sentence, you rarely stop in the middle of a sentence. You finish that sentence. And if you are starting to write about an upsetting experience, you start, and generally you're going to write about it for at least a few sentences and maybe more. And what you're doing is by doing this, you are forcing yourself to construct some kind of story. And I think building a story where you're trying to understand it is something that is really profound in terms of how our brain works. Stories are, you know, if you're studying for a test, you do much better if you're able to understand the story behind the facts that you are memorizing.
- [16:30]
A
Yeah, definitely.
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B
And that's the secret. When you're writing, what you're doing is the same thing. You are providing a framework to understand it. And once you have that framework, you don't need to think about it anymore. And we're, you know, think about it. We have a terrible experience and we are ruminating about it, ruminating over and over and over again. And then you put it into words. Maybe you talk to another person about it, who knows? But usually afterwards you realize that you feel more free. You're no longer weighed down by it because the story's now been made and now you get it. Now you understand it better.
- [17:09]
A
And so I guess my last question for you is if we had listeners tonight who maybe don't know that they have like. Or there's no specific traumatic experience that is weighing on them explicitly, but they're like, you know, I feel a little unsettled. I would like to bring myself a little bit of peace. How would you. Just as a first starting place, because, you know, they can go any direction from there. How would you suggest they start? Like, what if. If there are any parameters at all,
- [17:45]
B
you know, if I get up, you know, I wake up at two in the morning and I'm sitting there and I'm, you know. You know, when you get up at 2 in the morning and you're lying in bed, your brain is taking you somewhere. You know, maybe it's about something trivial that happened that day. Maybe it's a big talk you're going to be giving next week. Maybe it's this or that. And then you start thinking about it more and more and more and more. Then I get up and I'll just start by writing, you know, I'm having trouble sleeping, and I'm not sure what the issue is. It could be about, you know, what I ate for dinner tonight. Maybe that's unsettling. No, I'm not sure that really is it. I am worried about this big project next week. And, you know, now that I think about it, if I don't do well on this project, you know, this could affect my job. Why am I so worried about that? In other words, just let your mind take you. And very often I'll write this way, and after about 15 minutes, I'll even write saying, I'm kind of bored with this discussion. And then I'll just go back and go to bed and I'll go right to sleep.
- [18:59]
A
And it's. Once you get that off your chest, Right. I know that that's not necessarily the framework to think about, but once you've realized and really put your finger on, oh, this is why I can't sleep. This is what's been stressing me out. And you start to kind of bore yourself. Because I know that feeling in talking to other people, you know, I'm complaining about something, and they'll go, well, what do you. And I go, you know what? I'm bored of me. And then I will. That's the point where I start to feel better, for sure.
- [19:24]
B
That's right. And I think, by the way, talking to other people serves a very similar function.
- [19:30]
A
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I hope this was. I'm sure this was interesting, and I hope that our listeners, you know, feel something they can take away and try if they're having trouble sleeping tonight or any night. So thank you so much, Dr. James Pennebaker. I really appreciate your time.
- [19:46]
B
Well, thank you and good night. Good night,
- [19:51]
A
listeners. If you want to call in and talk about something, please shoot us an email at thenightlyatch. Co. We always want to hear from you. You can send a voice memo, you can send an email, and, you know, maybe we'll have a great chat and maybe we'll get an expert to weigh in as well. So this has been really wonderful. I really appreciate you listening. If you're having a hard time sleeping still after this wonderful convers, get up, write for 15 minutes, try to put your finger on what's stressing you out, I bet it'll help. Have a great night. Bye.
- [20:43]
B
Sam sa.
- [21:43]
A
To learn more about our phone free light and audio experience, head to Hatch Co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.