How does writing improve my mental health?

Published on: Sunday, February 16, 2020

By: Jason Hung

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How Does Writing Improve My Mental Health?

A cup of Ice vanilla latte. A chocolate muffin. And my laptop.

These are essential for my morning schedule – where I always go to a café from 8 a.m. to consume my breakfast and write an article per day.

From a sociological background, my articles address social inequalities, current affairs and mental health. When presenting and analysing ideas based on a sociological angle, I feel the growth of attachment with communities and societies. This sort of attachment often compensates for the dislocation social media deliver. Stina Sanders, a former model and instagrammer who has over 107,000 followers, told The Independent, “I know from my experience I can get FOMO when I see my friend’s photos of a party I didn’t go to, and this, in turn, can make me feel quite lonely and anxious.”

In an epoch where social media, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, are prevailing, I often doubt my worth and values due to the professional successes and social achievements my friends attain and share, a syndrome that a study conducted by the University of Copenhagen dubbed the “Facebook [or social media] envy”.

Suffering from acute anxiety disorder for ten years, my exploration of social media on a daily basis is, to some extent, a worry to me – increasing my heart beats and raising my concerns about how many likes I can obtain for each post. While Mark Zuckerberg purported social media are used to connect individuals, the undue pursuit of virtual connections often discourages people from having face-to-face interactions and in-person social engagement, prompting our development of social dislocation and a sense of loneliness.

Writing articles for newspapers and magazines regularly, however, is a way to “lining the dots”, allowing readers of press media to understand how I feel about and comment on the behaviours, affairs and phenomenon within communities and societies. Some readers are active in leaving comments – either agreeing or criticising what I write – in which their words are conducive to my development of reflexivity and self-worth. The intellectual exchange with readers often reinforces my connection with others, improving my sense of security and making me “feel alive”.

Aside from writing articles sociologically, I am also prone to express my feelings on mental health by words. Sharing my experiences on mental struggles and suggesting ways to improve individuals’ mental health are a reflexive process, facilitating my analyses on the causes, impacts and understanding of wellbeing. In doing so, I feel calmer and more secure whenever I write on such topics.

Through writing articles I am able to “communicate with myself” and “understand myself better”. I always told my friends, “While the society might be unease, writing helps me secure internal peace.”

The ongoing, regular expressions by words is a powerful strategy to lower the anxiety levels. Once people pick up the habits of writing, they are undertaking a “behavioural therapy” to secure self-worth, increase social bonding with communities and calm themselves down.

l Jason Hung is a visiting researcher at Stanford University, a Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) fellow at Clinton Foundation and a freelance writer at South China Morning Post.