The Flâneur's Turtle

By Cecelia Workman-Gonzalez, RMU Student.  

Free your mind and the rest will follow. Expressing your thoughts and being able to freely write them out on paper allows for much more than deep thinking and finger cramping. Expressive writing betters your body, mind, and soul in many ways. To write for betterment of self means to freely express your thoughts. Writing for me has allowed for me to clearly organize my thoughts that I couldn’t express thoroughly before. In a recent article it was stated “‘writing about earlier traumatic experience was associated with both short-term increases in physiological arousal and long-term decreases in health problem”. Since It clearly makes sense that writing on a regular basis makes for a healthier and happier lifestyle, more instructors should incorporate free-writing into their curriculum.

Writing can help one live a healthier lifestyle. There are many styles of writing, and many things to write about. Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health. I myself am proof that this theory works. When my cousin passed away when I was only age 19, and he was 18, I had a terrible time with grieving and my uncontrollable emotions of sadness. Being able to write my thoughts and feelings out without having to explain myself to someone else helped relieve some of that pain that I was feeling. This allowed for me to accept my cousin’s death, and understand my grievance. Everyone goes through traumatic events in their life. Although not everyone will be able to relate and express their thoughts and experiences in a way to generate happiness and relief, generally speaking, writing will allow for a healthier and happier lifestyle for those who can let out those sorrows.

 Not only will writing help you life a better life, but it can also increase your intelligence. I was floored when I read a recent article about this topic. All these years I have been thinking that the only way to get ahead and expand your knowledge and intelligence was to educate yourself through college and continuous learning. Well I was right, to an extent. I have learned that writing will increase your intelligence. A study had been conducted of cloistered Nuns to prove this theory.  The ones that were into writing had a much lower level of degenerative cognitive disease when they were older. They looked at childhood writing samples and compared them. Perhaps the ones who loved to write already were functioning at a higher cognitive level and had a greater reservoir of neurons. Or perhaps the writing is what helped them stay mentally alert. Creative writing allows your mind to be free, and let the thoughts just flow out. It is almost like there is no filter on your thoughts. Being able to openly express yourself in turn increases your intelligence.

Writing on a regular basis makes for a healthier and happier lifestyle. As stated above, the students who began writing at an early age showed a higher reservoir of neurons. I was one of the unfortunate ones. I had never been assigned a free writing, or creative writing, or even a writing assignment when I was younger. Honestly I didn’t even have to do a term paper until my senior year of high school. Even then the teacher held our hands the whole way through the paper. It ended up being more of the teacher’s ideas rather than the students. From the recent articles I have read about writing generating happiness, and allowing for others to live a healthier lifestyle, it is clear that more instructors should incorporate free-writing into their curriculum.