Having a bad day? Write about it. Having a good day? Think about it.

I have a few friends who love to journal. They write down everything that happens in their lives and spend lots of time thinking and analysing the events of their days. They tell me it makes them feel better because they gain some perspective on the day. But this may not always be the best thing.

One of the more fascinating findings in psychology is the power that writing about bad things has to heal. It helps people organise their thoughts, process through stressful events, and will make them feel better. Researchers have shown that writing about the bad things in your life can help you cope with those bad events and lead to greater well being and physical health.

This isn’t true when you think about bad things. When people go over a bad event again and again in their mind, they tend to ruminate on the worst aspects of the event. This leads to the person feeling worse, ruminating more, feeling worse, ruminating more, and so on. It becomes a vicious downward cycle because rumination prevents perspective taking and emotional closure over the event.

What about when good things happen? Well it turns out that the opposite is true. You should definitely think a lot about the event, but you probably shouldn’t write about it. If you write about it, you just might realise the good event wasn’t so good after all.

Writing promotes deeper analysis and understanding of an event. It can help people see that there are upsides to the bad event. For example, having a close family member pass away after a long illness is a devastating event. However, it may also mean that the family is no longer under the strain of constant care and worry about what is going to happen. If you are only ruminating over the pain of losing that person, you may not see this. And understanding this may make your life a little bit easier.

When you analyse a good event you also gain perspective, but this means that you may see the downsides of that event. Imagine you just got a big promotion. If you just continually ruminate on how good you felt that moment, you will relive the good feelings again and again. But if you sit down and analyse the promotion, you might start to think “Well I am going to have to work a lot more hours so I might not get too see my family as much.” Or “Maybe I just got lucky with the promotion? My co-worker deserved it more than I did.”

Analysis and taking perspective on something means you get to see the other side. But you don’t always want to see the other side. So before you sit down and write about the good thing that happened in your journal just think about it for a moment.

Further Reading:

Lyubomirsky, S., Sousa, L., & Dickerhoof, R. (2006). The costs and benefits of writing, talking, and thinking about life’s triumphs and defeats. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90 (4), 692-708 PMID: 16649864