Blogging: It's Good For Your Health!

Besides fame and fortune, here's another reason why you should blog: it's good for your health.

Jessica Wapner of Scientific American wrote why scientists think that blogging (and other forms of expressive writing) are beneficial:

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

Scientists now hope to explore the neurological underpinnings at play, especially considering the explosion of blogs. According to Alice Flaherty, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the placebo theory of suffering is one window through which to view blogging. As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly.

Flaherty, who studies conditions such as hypergraphia (an uncontrollable urge to write) and writer’s block, also looks to disease models to explain the drive behind this mode of communication. For example, people with mania often talk too much. “We believe something in the brain’s limbic system is boosting their desire to communicate,” Flaherty explains. Located mainly in the midbrain, the limbic system controls our drives, whether they are related to food, sex, appetite, or problem solving. “You know that drives are involved [in blogging] because a lot of people do it compulsively,” Flaherty notes. Also, blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art.

Now, all I did was cut and paste, and I feel better already! Link

The little picture is from one of shirts available from Neatorama's store: Warning I Blog


no surprise here.. it's proven that self-medication or hollistic healing is a lot more beneficial than anyone leads on, especially the pharm companies and the FDA. if they started telling everyone that you can practically heal any minor (even major) ailment by yourself, they would lose TON AND TONS of money because people would stop buying medicines and drugs. i always try to stick it to the man (i know.. so cliche..) and hollistic healing is definitely a good way to do so. echinacea and vitamin-c are the best recommendations, lots of water, OJ, and sleep. let your body heal as it shall.
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