For people going through a divorce, spending some time writing about their experiences in a certain way can help reduce the harmful effects of stress on the heart, says a new study.A technique called narrative expressive writing\u2014not just writing about their emotions, but creating a meaningful narrative of their experience\u2014may reduce the harmful cardiovascular effects of stress related to marital separation, said the study published in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine.<\/p>\n
Narrative expressive writing led to improvements in heart rate and an index of the heart\u2019s responses to stress, the findings showed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe results suggest that the ability to create a structured narrative\u2014not just re-experiencing emotions but making meaning out of them\u2014allows people to process their feelings in a more adaptive way, which may in turn help improve their cardiovascular health,\u201d said one of the researchers Kyle Bourassa from University of Arizona, Tucson, US.<\/p>\n
The study included 109 adults (70 women and 39 men) with a recent marital separation. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three writing exercises, performed on three occasions over several days.<\/p>\n
One group performed a traditional expressive writing task, with instructions to write freely about their \u201cstrongest and deepest emotions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another group performed a narrative expressive writing task, in which they created a \u201ccoherent and organised narrative\u201d of their separation experience\u2014culminating in describing an end of their \u201cdivorce story\u201d.<\/p>\n
The third group was given an emotionally neutral writing task.<\/p>\n
Indicators of the body\u2019s cardiovascular responses to stress were compared before and after the writing tasks\u2014up to nine months after the writing.<\/p>\n
Participants assigned to narrative expressive writing had a reduction in heart rate as well as an increase in heart rate variability (HRV), which measures beat-to-beat variations in heart rate.<\/p>\n
Higher HRV reflects better functioning of the body\u2019s parasympathetic nervous system reactions to stimuli, including stress.<\/p>\n
The researchers, however, noted that creating narrative may be good for the heart, but this does not mean that there would be a corresponding improvement in psychological wellbeing.<\/p>\n
IANS<\/strong><\/p>\n Picture source: Alamy image<\/strong><\/p>\n Picture used for illustrative purposes alone<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For people going through a divorce, spending some time writing about their experiences in a certain way can help reduce the harmful effects of stress on the heart, says a new study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}