Writing Poetry Beats The Blues

By Super Admin

Monday, May 30, 2011, 17:18

Write poems if you feeling blue. According to latest research, writing poetry helps brain to deal with stress, as it regulates emotions and reduces feelings of anxiety, fear and sadness.

The act of putting feelings into words is often cathartic because it inhibits parts of the brain linked to emotional turmoil, and increases activity in the region to do with self-control, as observed by Dr Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at the University of California, and his colleagues.

The researchers say that the quality of the verse or prose written has no bearing on the effect on the author, less vivid and descriptive the piece, the better. With these latest findings the researchers wish to develop new forms of therapy for fears and social phobias. Expression oneself in words was almost an unintentional emotional regulation.

"It seems to regulate our distress. I don't think that people sit down in order to regulate their emotions but there is a benefit," the Telegraph quoted him, as saying.

"I think it could play a role in why many people write diaries or write bad lyrics to songs - the kind that should never be played on the radio," he added.

For the study, the brains of 30 participants were scanned while they describing in words distressing pictures. It was found that writing reduced the activity in the amygala, a part of the brain connected with emotion and fear and increased activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the mind's regulator. It was concluded that the act of writing about an emotion calmed the brains and restored mental balance.

"If you ask people then they don't think that it serves an emotion regulation but when you look at the brain that looks like what is going on," he added. "The more frontal activity we see, the less amydala response. There seems to be a see-saw affect," he added. AGENCIES