 Pouring your emotions out on paper could help wounds heal quicker, researchers say.
It is thought that writing about troubling experiences helps people deal with them. This could then help the immune system work more effectively, researchers told the British Psychological Society conference in Stoke-on-Trent. They say their findings offer a cheap and easy to administer way of helping patients heal faster. In the study, which involved 36 people, half were asked to write about the most upsetting experience they had had, spelling out how they had felt. The rest of the study participants wrote about trivial things, such as how they spent their free time. Both groups spent 20 minutes a day for three days writing. Following the writing exercise, researchers created a small skin puncture on the participants' upper arms. The wounds were examined two weeks later. It was found that the group who had written about their emotional experiences had smaller wounds, meaning they had healed more quickly. Those whose wounds were healing more slowly were found to have higher levels of stress and psychological distress. Suzanne Scott, from the Unit of Psychology at King's College London, who led the research, said: "These findings have implications for the development of relatively brief and easy interventions that could have beneficial effects on wound healing. "The theory is that there's a long-term health benefit. She added: "It's easy to administer because the people don't need to have gone through some awful experience, they just need to write about their most upsetting experience." Psychologists say stress also influences how people recover from surgery. Professor John Weinman of King's College London told the BPS conference: "These research findings can help patients and will be important for developing interventions for patients undergoing different types of surgery." (Agencies) | 研究者們說，將情感傾注于紙端，你的傷口會愈合得更快。 據(jù)說，把煩惱的經(jīng)歷寫出來能夠幫助人們解決問題。 研究者們在斯托康川特舉行的英國心理學會大會上提出，這樣做能夠提高免疫系統(tǒng)的工作效率。 他們說他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)提供了一種既省錢又方便的方法來幫助病人提早康復(fù)。 有36人參加了該項研究，一半的人按要求記錄下他們最不開心的經(jīng)歷，并詳細敘述他們的感受。 其余的人則記錄一些不重要的事，例如他們?nèi)绾味冗^空閑時間之類的。 這兩組人每天花20分鐘時間來記錄，這樣連續(xù)做了三天。 寫作練習之后，研究者們在參加者的上臂做一個小的皮膚穿刺。 兩周以后，再一次檢查傷口。 結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)記錄自己情緒變化的那組成員傷口更小，這就意味著他們康復(fù)得更快。 那些傷口愈合較慢的人結(jié)果有很大的心理壓力，精神高度緊張。 倫敦國王大學心理學院的蘇珊·斯科特是這次研究的帶頭人。她說：“這些發(fā)現(xiàn)意味著一些比較簡單易行的干預(yù)就會有助于傷口愈合。” "原理就是這樣做身體會長期受益。 她還補充說：“這種方法很容易掌握，因為人們不一定非要經(jīng)歷可怕的事，他們只需要寫下令自己最苦惱的經(jīng)歷就可以了。” 心理學家們說精神緊張也會影響手術(shù)后的康復(fù)。 倫敦國王大學的約翰·溫曼教授在此次大會上說：“這些研究結(jié)果會對病人有所幫助，并且對于探索干預(yù)治療各種手術(shù)病人的辦法也是很重要的。” （中國日報網(wǎng)站譯） |
Updated: 2003-09-12 01:00
