Writing your way to wellbeing

For the next few blogs I will be introducing methods of expressive writing which have been shown to have a positive effect on wellbeing, starting with Free Writing

Free writing is when you write for a short and specific amount of time without stopping and without thinking about what you write. This part is key. Free writing is a journey into the unknown. It is similar to play, a chance to explore. There are no preconceptions of what the end product will be. In free writing, you just dive in and see what happens. It can sometimes lead to your very best ideas.

Writing can have similar effects on the brain as meditation. In freewriting people often say they become ‘lost’ in the writing so they are unaware of time passing. Psychologists call this experience ‘flow’: being fully engaged with a challenging task and the experience of flow is connected to happiness. Breathing slows down and you can get into a zone where words flow freely.

So stream of consciousness writing can be a very effective way of relaxing and lowering stress levels. It’s like the idea in meditation of watching monkey mind: freewriting hoovers out all the thoughts floating around your head that are monkey mind. The ideas and words in your head flow on to the page and you just pay attention to the process of writing without interfering, analysing or censoring what is written. You are unlikely to get distracted by your own writing ideas because you are still busy continuously writing. You as writer stay out of the process and let the writing hand do its work. The effect is very soothing and therapeutic.

Free writing is like taking a ramble through your thoughts and ideas. There is time to examine an idea, then drop it and go on to explore another path and sometimes gloriously you find that two paths join up in the end. Ideas that seemed to just drop on to the page for no reason suddenly and meaningfully connect with other ideas. Because free writing is all about tapping into the unconscious mind, the real benefit is that we connect things we might never have connected if we didn’t take a ramble and start rummaging.

Freewriting is also a very effective way of brainstorming for writers. It gets you over the ‘I’ve nothing to write about’, chewing your pen phase. The blank page is a menacing thing and full of terror for most people. If you’ve got a difficult task ahead, a writing assignment for college, a speech to write, a presentation to prepare, free writing can be a great way to start.

So try to pick a time when you won’t be disturbed. Early in the morning might be good when you are less likely to be interrupted. On the other hand if you free write only now and then and never manage to pin down a specific time of the day, then so be it. It really is a question of whatever works best for you.

Set a timer on your phone for anything from five to ten minutes and just write. Pay no attention to spelling, grammar or sentence structure. Just keep writing till the buzzer goes. Remember you don’t have to read it back unless you want to.

What you’re aiming for is deep dive writing. Just like it’s dangerous for divers to surface too quickly, free writing hopefully gets you into a meditative place where you’re no longer consciously self-critical about what you write. Imagine yourself writing with magic earplugs that not only shut out the noise around you but also the voice we all have, the old internal critic, that high pitched quarrelsome voice in your head that says you can’t write, you’ve nothing to say and your ideas are rubbish. Instead you are at one with the pen, the paper and the words.

If you feel more comfortable writing longhand with pen and paper, then do that. Writing is very soothing and the change to writing by hand can also be a quiet signal to your imagination that this is a different sort of writing. But if you type faster than you write, you may want to type your free writes on to a blank screen. The website 750 words.com might be perfect for you. You can always delete the whole thing if you don’t want to save it.

If you find yourself writing about the same thing all the time, then pick a random word from a newspaper or book and begin writing from that word. But sometimes we are stuck writing about the same thing until we figure it out for ourselves. That might take a while. While freewriting helps to explore all sorts of issues including ones that will upset us, it can help us move beyond anger or grief to figure out a new path. Writing can help us make sense of difficult and traumatic experiences. If you feel it’s likely that freewriting will bring up a lot of painful issues for you, consider getting some support as well.