Number 45 in our countdown of '70 Ways Art Improves Our Health' highlights how expressive writing can improve our immune system…

Many studies have shown that expressive writing can help our mental health. And number 62 in our countdown explained how creative writing has been found to help our injuries heal faster. But other evidence shows that it can do even more than that.

Creative and expressive writing has been found to boost our immune function system. This was first uncovered in a study from New Zealand. In this study, 37 HIV+ patients were divided into two groups. The first group was asked to write about their traumatic life experiences. The second, control group wrote about their everyday activities. After four writing sessions, the group that wrote about their life experiences had significantly improved immunity (measured by their white blood cell counts).

“those who had written about their stressful life events showed significant improvements in lung function and pain reduction”

Similar results were found for 107 asthma and rheumatoid arthritis sufferers in an earlier study. Following a similar method of splitting the participants into two groups, those who had written about their stressful life events showed significant improvements in lung function and pain reduction, unlike those in the control group.

The same was found for cancer patients in a 2008 study: a group of cancer patients, who spent a minimum of 20 minutes writing about how cancer affected them every week for three weeks, experienced less pain and reported higher levels of wellbeing.

Even more research using similar expressive writing has found that it can help to reduce blood pressure, improve liver function, lessen insomnia, and shorten hospital stays.

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