Writing and Health

The Extended Mind Thesis posits that our brains extend beyond our cranium-contained tissues and may even encompass non-bodily assets that we use to store information, compute, and cogitate.

A calculator, then, might be thought of as an extended portion of our brains when we're using them because of how we interact with these devices, as might Google, because there's some evidence we intuitively consider the information contained on the internet (information that's easily referenced, at least) to be "ours," in the sense that it's somewhere in our brains, ready to be summoned if and when we need it.

There's plenty of justified controversy and criticism of this framing of how we think and what we should consider to be part of our cognitive apparatuses, but it can serve as a useful heuristic for how we engage with our tools and other resources, and for why some external assets seem to function and feel as if they're connected to our brains and bodies.

One of the tools that would seem to be connected to our neurological setups in this way is written language.

You could argue that language more generally is a disembodied technology we use to encode and communicate information, but written language seems to serve even more specific purposes, especially in terms of how it can inform our psychological state.

Some research has shown, for instance, that writing about difficult (even traumatic) life experiences can make these experiences seem subjectively less-traumatic, can result in less avoidance (in the sense that it may feel too difficult to think about these events because of the stress and disconcertion they trigger), and can make the writer feel more emotionally sturdy (and tests show that, objectively, they have indeed become stronger in this regard).

Other studies have shown that folks with life-threatening or terminal ailments can boost their immune systems by writing about their emotions and stresses, and though there's some evidence that completely unguided writing about these subjects can sometimes worsen a person's psychological state (leading to poorer overall health), others suggest that any kind of emotionally exploratory writing can be beneficial, and that nudging people to write about the meaning and implications of their situations or experiences can result in better outcomes, on average.

There's also evidence that writing, privately or publicly via a blog or newsletter, can trigger the release of dopamine, can lead to improved self-awareness and resilience (improving self-confidence), while also reducing the impact (and perceived experience) of depression, anxiety, and stress.

The general consensus in the world of psychology is that a regular writing habit will almost always be beneficial, can be healthful, too, and can have both short- and long-term benefits.

And it's been posited that this is partially the consequence of how writing interacts with our larger cognitive setups, serving as a sort of external sandbox in which we can engage with our thoughts, experiences, and self-perceptions using different tools and perspectives than we would typically apply, limited to the resources tucked away in our actual brains.