The first thing to remember for those students and professionals who do not like the process of writing is ... writing heals.
The positive effect of writing has been proven a long time ago already. The healing power of writing is used by psychologists from all over the world, making this therapy effective to apply when a person is stressed, injured, depressed, angry, and powerless to avoid or change something in their life. The therapy that can help people here is called expressive writing; it has been tested by Dr. James W. Pennebaker from the University of Texas in 2011 and described here. It must be mentioned, that expressive writing does not work for ALL people, as it can help them deal with some emotional problems only, not severe mental deceases.
Medical students will probably disagree with the fact their academic writing can help them solve all problems and deal with stress from a large amount of assignments they have in college daily. In fact, essay writing can hardly be compared with simple thoughts expression at a sheet of paper, as the nature of essays differs from narratives or other fiction stories by all means...
But! The first thing to do before writing your academic paper (it works for any type of head work actually) is cleaning your mind from anxiety, irritation, stress and all other types of blocks. And a student can do that with the help of three research-backed ways Eric Barker described in his article.
To make a long story short, here they are:
1. Write down your worries
2. Write down the good things that happen
3. Write down the things you're looking forward to
As we all know, all illnesses come because of nerves; so, we should protect and worry about our mental health first of all, if we want to stay healthy. And here we come back to writing and its positive influence on people's minds again. So, what effect can writing an essay or any other type of papers have on a person?
• Writing clears our mind
• Writing helps us think big
• Writing sweeps our mind
• Writing develops our analytical skills
• Writing enhances our communication skills
Writing helps us forget about stress, as it makes our mind busy with other thoughts and focused on other problems and information; all above-mentioned statements makes it clear that writing definitely has a therapeutic effect on people.
Sure, you may take a sheet of paper and start taking notes to reduce your stress and check the effectiveness of the above mentioned writing therapy. In fact, it might have an even better effect than one obtained by typing at your laptop, tablet or other mobile device. Anyway, the Internet provides many interesting writing resources you can try for writing therapy!
Here are just some of them to pay attention to:
• Penzu – to write a private diary online, to take notes, to express thoughts, to plan your academic and other types of writing.
• Edit Pad – to write everything that comes to your mind, save it, and express thoughts without any external distractions.
• 750 Words – to write without being censored or edited, to express everything that comes to your head, to take notes concerning whatever you need, and to try writing all that with 750 words only.
• Bid4Papers – to ask for writing help, to get a professional writer's advice, to learn how to write essays and express your thoughts clearly.
• OmmWriter – to write a text without external distractions, to edit texts, to concentrate while creating, to listen to peaceful music while writing.
• Boom Writer – to write stories, to share them with others, to look for inspiration to write, to win awards for better story, to set your imagination free, to feel yourself an author of the next bestseller.
• Writing.com – to write and share academic or fiction writings with professional authors, to get feedback from them, to learn what you need to improve your writing style, to join the community of like-minded people, to read tips on writing, to comment on other users' works.
Feeling stressed or powerless to deal with assignment or any other problem? Writing therapy is always here to try and feel better.
Lesley J. Vos is a writing coach and a private teacher of French language. She is an experienced blogger for Bid4Papers, who also contributes to many authoritative websites, including Edudemic, Getting Smart and Killer Startups. Lesley writes her first novel now, and you can always contact her on Google+.