Expressive writing can help people recover more quickly from physical injuries, reported Medical Daily Friday.

Older adults who had undergone a biopsy were able to heal more quickly if they wrote about traumatic events and their emotions relating to those events, than other biopsy patients who simply wrote about daily activities, according to the study.

“Writing about personally distressing events can speed wound healing in [an older] population that is at risk of poor healing,” said Elizabeth Broadbent, senior lecturer in health psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, according to Time.

The study reviewed 49 overall healthy adults, ages 64 to 97, who were all assigned to write for 20 minutes per day for three consecutive days. Half of these patients were asked to “write about the most traumatic/upsetting experience in their life, delving into their deepest thoughts, feelings, and emotions about the event, ideally not previously shared with others,” while the other half were required to “write about their daily activities for tomorrow, without mentioning emotions, opinions, or beliefs.”

Two weeks after writing, the researchers took small skin biopsies, which left wounds on all the participants’ arms. These wounds were photographed to mark the healing progress.

Broadbent found that 76 percent of those who had written about difficult events in an expressive manner had fully healed 11 days after the biopsies, while 42 percent of the other group had.

“We think writing about distressing events helped participants make sense of the events and reduce distress,” Broadbent told Scientific American.

감정을 표현하는 글쓰기가 신체에 입은 상처 회복 속도를 높이는데 도움이 된다는 연구결과를 메디컬 데일리가 보도했다. 다쳤을 때의 힘든 상황에 대한 감정을 느낀 대로 기록한 사람은 일상 생활을 기록한 사람에 비해 회복 속도가 빠르다는 연구결과다.

“개인적으로 아픔이 있는 사건을 글로 풀어내는 것은 특히 상처 회복속도가 느린 노인층에게 효과가 있는 것으로 나타났습니다,” 뉴질랜드 University of Auckland 심리학과 교수 엘리자베스 브로드벤트 (Elizabeth Broadbent) 가 타임지와의 인터뷰에서 말한 내용이다.

연구 조사 대상은 64세-97세의 건강한 성인 49명이었다. 절반은 쓰라린 기억에 대해 쓰도록 했고 나머지 절반은 일상생활을 기록하도록 해 20분 간 3일 연속으로 글을 쓰게 한 후 상처 조직을 검사 비교 했다.

힘들었던 과거를 글로 쓴 환자들이 완전히 회복 하는데는 11일이 걸렸지만 일상 생활을 기록했던 환자들 중에는 42퍼센트만이 같은 기간 내 회복했다고 브로드벤트 교수가 말했다.

출처 : 코리아타임즈