Blogging is good for you!

Blogging is good for you! At least that's the verdict of this article in Scientific American.


* It is a stress-coping method

* It improves memory

* It improves sleep

* It boosts immune cell activity

* It reduces viral load in AIDS patients

* It speeds healing after surgery

The article also comments that: "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."

As you will notice, it is not just blogging, but also expressive writing in general that is involved in some of this research. This would indicate that some of these things (perhaps all of them) would also be true of those who write privately, rather than writing on a public forum such as a blog.

I can logically connect some of the benefits without too much thinking, but I am curious to what kind of connection they end up finding about some of the other areas.

For instance, I can understand the benefit of blogging as a "stress-coping method", since the process of thinking things out, talking them out, writing them out, etc. helps us to get our thoughts in order and look at things in a better perspective.

I can understand the benefit of blogging as an aid to memory - since the very aspect of writing something down is usually an aid to memory - so writing a whole post about something should be helpful to your memory.

I would be interested, however, in the more medical connections that they found.

I also wonder which of these would be more true and less true of blogging than other forms of expressive writing. For instance, the community aspect of blogging would seem to be a helpful thing in some areas. While the public nature of blogging may be less stress-relieving than just writing things privately (after all - don't we all tend to be a little self-conscious about what others may think regarding what we have written?)

So, fellow bloggers, what are some benefits that you see from blogging?

Just my thoughts,

Frank



HT: Bet at Dappled Things