Scientific American published an article back in May about the healing powers of blogging, or more specifically, writing about thoughts and feelings in general. The article discusses how writing is not only useful as a stress management tool, but has also been linked to positive physiological affects, like improved memory and immune system boosts.

I wholeheartedly agree with at stress reduction aspects. the simple act of writing about “stuff”; something as simple as a couple of paragraphs about my day, a conversation I had, or something neat I saw somewhere really does act as a pressure relief valve.

Writing something down gives me a venue to organize the jumble of thoughts and feelings I’ve got rattling around inside my head, heart, and gut. Once I get something down on paper (or more likely in my case, a text editor), I can often see connections and patterns I couldn’t before, which might suggest solutions to problems. It can make an apparently insurmountable challenge seem a lot less challenging once I’ve forced myself to turn the random thoughts and emotions into a coherent piece of prose.

Of course, sometimes it’s just an excuse to set off on a freeing, therapeutic yawp of a rant about something that pisses me off, which just plain feels good to get off of my chest and out there.

Ask the clichéd little girl with the pink fuzzy diary with a lock on it – getting our feelings down helps us deal with them more effectively, helps us sift through the confusion and disappointment about why our parents just don’t understand us, or why that dreamy captain of the football team doesn’t know we exist…

…well, maybe not that last one in my case.

Diaries and journals are a long-standing tradition; Some of us just put our brain dumps up on the internet for the world to see. So, yeah…writing as therapy and self-medication. I can see it.