- Expressing feelings by telling a story of your relationship has notable benefits
- Writing lowers the heart’s rate and increases its beat variability, boosting health
- Telling a story has advantages over expressing feelings or recording activities
- Just 20 minutes a day of so-called story-telling journalling could be beneficial
Alexandra Thompson Health Reporter For Mailonline
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Writing a diary after going through a divorce could improve your heart health and your ability to adapt to new situations, a study reveals.
The researchers found the benefits of keeping a journal were seen among those who expressed their feelings by writing the story of their relationship.
Study author Kyle Bourassa, from the University of Arizona, said: ‘To be able to create a story in a structured way — not just re-experience your emotions but make meaning out of them — allows you to process those feelings in a more physiologically adaptive way.
‘The explicit instructions to create a narrative may provide a scaffolding for people who are going through this tough time.
‘This structure can help people gain an understanding of their experience that allows them to move forward, rather than simply spinning and re-experiencing the same negative emotions over and over.’
Expressing your feelings in a narrative of your relationship could help you cope with a divorce
DIVORCE BLAMED AS MORE MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN SUFFER EATING DISORDERS
Divorce may be triggering eating disorders in middle-aged women, experts say.
They warn that those in their forties are in danger of bulimia and anorexia from life changes including marriage breakdown and the death of a parent.
A study by University College London and Icahn School of Medicine in New York earlier this year found that 15 per cent of middle-aged women have battled an eating disorder and almost a quarter of these have suffered in the past year.
It was previously thought that by this age women had passed the ‘window of risk’ for eating disorders, which are most frequently associated with teenagers.
The higher-than-expected figures are being blamed, at least in part, on emotional upheaval in later life.
Researchers from the University of Arizona split 109 men or women who separated or divorced their partners on average three months ago into three groups.
The first group involved participants writing deep feelings about their relationship and experience.
A second group was asked to tell the story of their relationship by expressing their emotions in a narrative framework with a beginning, middle and end.
The third group non-emotionally described their daily activities.
All participants wrote in their assigned styles for 20 minutes a day for three consecutive days.
The researchers assessed their physical and psychological health before the study and at two follow-up visits.
Around eight months later, those in the second group – who expressed the story of their relationship – had a lower heart rate than the other two groups.
They also had higher heart rate variability, which refers to the variation in time between heartbeats and reflects the body’s ability to adapt to its environment.
A lower heart rate and a greater beat variability are both associated with improved health outcomes.
The findings, to be published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, add to a growing body of research on divorce and health, and may have significant implications since marital separation is often linked with poor overall health outcomes, the researchers said.
Although more investigation is needed to determine the long-term effects of so-called story-telling journals, the initial findings suggest it does not take much to see significant benefits.
Bourassa, said: ‘To be able to create a story in a structured way — not just re-experience your emotions but make meaning out of them — allows you to process those feelings in a more physiologically adaptive way.
‘The explicit instructions to create a narrative may provide a scaffolding for people who are going through this tough time.
‘This structure can help people gain an understanding of their experience that allows them to move forward, rather than simply spinning and re-experiencing the same negative emotions over and over.
‘One short intervention – 20 minutes over three days – translated to these measurable effects.
‘If larger studies replicate these findings in the future, this would be an evidence-based tool that could be widely used for people struggling with divorce.’
This comes after research conducted by Iowa State University in 2015 revealed marriages are six per cent more likely to end in divorce if the wife becomes seriously ill.
In contrast, a husband’s health does not change the likelihood of divorce.
The researchers said that men, particularly older ones, often have not been socialised to be caregivers in the same way that women are.
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