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Apart from being a tool that helps us store and communicate important information, writing is also an easily accessible and flexible type of therapy. That’s reason enough to celebrate and start looking at writing as a catalyst to improved mental health, academic and career success.

As a student, you process copious amounts of knowledge that is produced from your studies. On top of the coursework, it’s also important to develop and maintain healthy relationships with other students and your lecturers. Most of that ‘relationship work’ will involve writing to those people. In many instances, the life of a student is centered on writing and organizing notes, irrespective of the type of qualification they are studying for. 

A regular writing habit (especially outside of academic work) helps with finding meaning in daily experiences. It also helps to observe those experiences from a renewed perspective. As a result, you will tend to see the silver lining even during your most negative and stressful moments.

Writing out your thoughts and feelings helps you have a strong handle on the following mental health challenges:

• Grief and loss

When a loved one passes away, we can find solace, reflection and acceptance by writing about their life and the lessons they taught you.

• Anxiety

Many people can attest to having a childhood filled with anxiety. Keeping a journal and publishing blogs about life and your learning can help you become better at communicating your thoughts. Consequently, you can also become more confident and sociable.

• Depression

2020 was a mentally challenging year for the world and it’s fair to say many were in a dark mental space. Having a creative outlet like writing proved to be therapeutic and a good distraction given all the was happening in the world because of the Carona Virus.

• Communication skills

Taking the plunge to publish your thoughts and knowledge can allow you to gather feedback and improve. The feedback loop can boost your confidence. It also invites people with the same perspective to reach out.

The benefits of writing your thoughts and feelings:

• Build a second brain that spans years

Imagine if you were to read through ten years’ worth of notes that you wrote, on different topics, moods and attitudes.

That collection of notes is a powerful repository of knowledge that shows different mindsets of the same person. It is the act of creating a second brain.

When you are armed with a collection of notes that span back years, you can look at your mind outside of yourself, so to speak. This gives you the ability to identify behavioural patterns that lead to how you interact with the world.

• Write for mental and emotional clarity

Every time you decide to face a blank page or screen to express yourself or make a To-Do list, you choose to sharpen your mind.

Writing helps with the thinking process. Over time, it makes it easier to remember details from lectures, meetings, articles, videos and other media.

As you develop a strong writing habit, you’ll begin to pay more attention to your behaviour and the world around you.

• Improve your creativity

When you organize information using notes, you invariably elevate your creativity in the process. The notes carry different pieces of information and that presents an opportunity to combine the ideas written in your notebook to create fresh ideas.

A systematic way to store notes encourages open-mindedness. And it puts you in a position to make connections between contrasting ideas.

A writing habit is also an opportunity to develop a consistent idea generation system.

• Learn to store (and perhaps, publish) the ideas that you learn

The reality is that in every interaction you have there is something interesting to learn. From throwaway conversations, television series episodes, movies, YouTube video right through to music.

When you have a system to save and sort that information, learning becomes easier and happens anywhere. When you are an avid note taker, you listen to people with a strong intent to understand them and learn something new.

Collecting notes is a great way to inspire curiosity.

• Maintain relationships in your life like a champ with clear communication

Another interesting reality is that when you improve your writing skills, your relationships benefit. Writing necessitates that the writer resolves any emotional chaos they may have happened inside of them in order to create words that connect with other people.

Along with a daily writing habit grows the ability to communicate thoughts in a clear manner. When you can write clearly the quality of your conversations also improves.

More than anything the past year has made us think deeply about the relationship we have with our health. Up until then, many of us have never really felt forced to introspect the relationship we have with our health. That decision has always been left to our parents and guardians to handle; book us doctor appointments when we are ill, force us to eat our vegetables, go to the dentist and finish our medication. But what happens when you start becoming young adults, move away from home and you don’t always have guardians around to keep you accountable. Essentially when you transition into adulthood and you have to start being accountable for your health. Being healthy does contribute to our energy, productivity, and even happiness. But have you ever taken the time the time to think about how proactive or even reactive you are about your health?

Proactivity vs Reactivity

The main difference between being proactive and being reactive regarding your health is that reactivity is activated action in response to a pain, symptom, or warning sign, whereas proactivity is conscious action irrespective of any trigger.

Proactivity is essentially a state of mind that forces us you to be conscious and in tune with your body. Being proactive is the practice of considering these health choices BEFORE problems arise rather than after. To put it simply, proactivity is getting up and being active because you know that exercise brings with it many benefits, and eventually you’ll reap the rewards. Proactivity is also making informed, timely choices about your nutrition and physical health.

Things to consider for being more proactive:

Maintain a physically active lifestyle

Maintaining a physically active lifestyle is important, whether it’s running, jogging, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking instead of taking public transport just to keep your muscles moving. It’s no secret that being mobile has copious benefits not only on your physical health but your mental health too.

Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine

Another form of proactivity is getting the COVID-19 vaccination. You’re choosing to be proactive, because once again “prevention is better than cure”.  Once you receive your first shot, your body begins producing antibodies to the coronavirus. These antibodies help your immune system fight the virus if you happen to be exposed, so it reduces your chance of getting the disease.

It’s true that you can still become infected after being vaccinated, but once more of the population is vaccinated, those chances are further reduced thanks to something called herd immunity. So, getting vaccinated not only reduces your chance of being infected but also contributes to community protection, reducing the likelihood of virus transmission.

Being open to Therapy or Counselling – even if you’re not struggling from a mental illness

When people think of therapy, they think of this intense process that is meant for people who might be clinically depressed, going through a traumatic experience, or suffering from anxiety. According to Business Insider in an article titled: 9 reasons, you can benefit from therapy even if you don’t have a mental illness, “Therapy promotes tools that can improve your relationship with yourself and your brain, something that everyone can benefit from”. It can also serve as a mirror, an objective mirror to openly discuss your feelings in a judgment-free zone, a zone that is not always something we’re privileged to have.

It can also help you navigate big life decisions. In between the transitioning from a high school student to a tertiary student to an employee, there are major life decisions that need to be made. Maybe you just need someone to help you weigh a decision about work, relationships, varsity, and even family. It can also help with having uncomfortable conversations – learning how to express yourself. Expressing your expectations, needs, and dissatisfaction to those around you.

Another misconception is that therapy is about negative issues only. In most cases, talking about the positive things in your relationships and in your life that make you happy, can allow you to be even happier about them. In other words, help you see things that are good as great because we often tend to downplay the big accolades in our lives.

Reactionary

In contrast, reactivity is taking action only when you’re in pain. Prioritizing your health after symptoms develop is being reactive. Being proactive gives us an option to potentially avoid symptoms by maintaining a healthy body, to begin with.

What do you think sounds more beneficial for your overall health and wellbeing? As you consider this question, remember that both proactivity and reactivity are largely a state of mind. If you tell yourself that you want to be in tune with your body, it will happen. However, if you are nonchalant about your body and mental health, this might have negative effects later in your life that could have been easily prevented.