Writing helps cancer patients with stress
BBC News has an article featuring a study that (unsurprisingly) shows that therapeutic writing can help patients deal with the stress of cancer.
Her “expressive writing” exercise, lasting just 20 minutes, posed questions to leukaemia or lymphoma patients about how the cancer had changed them and how they felt about those changes.
When those taking part were contacted again a few weeks later, 49% said that the writing had changed their thoughts about their illness, while 38% said their feelings towards their situation had changed.
While there was no evidence of direct impact of the session on their illness, where the patients had reported greater changes in their mindset during the writing, this could be linked to more positive reports of quality of life given to their doctors during follow-up appointments.
Ms Morgan said: “Thoughts and feelings, or the cognitive processing and emotions related to cancer, are key writing elements associated with health benefits, according to previous studies. Writing only about the facts has shown no benefit.”
