Feeling Anxious? Write A Love Letter
- Brainz Magazine
- Mar 30, 2022
- 5 min read
Written by: Angela C M Cox, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In 2013, city parks officials in Melbourne, Australia, created specific ID numbers and associated email addresses for the city’s trees in order for citizens to report problems like downed branches in the local parks. What happened instead is that the trees began receiving love letters from the community. Messages like…
Dear Algerian oak,
Thank you for giving us oxygen. Thank you for being so pretty.
I don’t know where I’d be without you to extract my carbon dioxide. (I would probably be in heaven) Stay strong, stand tall amongst the crowd.
We were going to speak about wildlife but don't have enough time and have other priorities, unfortunately. Hopefully one day our environment will be our priority.
And…
Dear 1037148,
You deserve to be known by more than a number.
I love you. Always and forever.
If Melbourne City Officials were surprised at this strange turn of events, perhaps they shouldn’t have been. Our human need for connection comes in many forms, but perhaps none is more essential to our mental and physical well-being than expressing love and gratitude for the things and people in our lives.
The very long history of love letters shows us that since the beginning of time, people have wanted to recognize beauty, to speak words of appreciation, to offer comfort, and to create and sustain valuable connections. Until the rise of technology made communication over-simplified and therefore less inherently valuable, it seems that humans most frequently made these types of connections through hand-written letters, something that is a bit more rare these days, but definitely should make a comeback. Studies now show that writing longhand instead of on a keyboard or phone keypad (or with the useful and now ubiquitous talk-to-text function) can have significant benefits that technology just cannot provide.
Improved cognition
A 2013-14 study conducted by researchers in the Psychology Department of Princeton University showed that college students who wrote notes longhand as opposed to typing on laptops showed significantly better cognition and retention of material. The act of physically writing something down forces your brain to synthesize material, draw inferences, create new connections, and apply concepts in unique and novel ways. This study further proved that technology can inhibit cognitive processes and can prevent access to parts of our brain that process, analyze, and synthesize information.
A Natural High
Writing by longhand actually alters our brain chemistry in many positive ways that typing, texting, or even speaking cannot. For example, writing a thank-you letter has been shown to light up Area 17 in your brain, a part of your brain that is tied to memory and visual input. This is likely because once you have started to write a note of appreciation for someone, your brain starts to relive the event and, amazingly, your brain then releases the identical chemicals that it released when you first experienced the event! Your brain doesn’t know the difference between living and re-living. This writing of gratitude or love will flood your brain with happy chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine. Sitting down to pen appreciation to someone creates a natural high.
Mindfulness and Presence
Perhaps most importantly, writing requires us to be present. It demands focus and mindfulness which is excellent for fighting anxiety. Lao Tzu reminds us that “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” Writing a letter by hand requires your whole body – one hand on paper, one holding the pen – and your whole mind as you think of what you want to say and how best to craft the message. In that moment, it is just you and the pen and paper. Maybe your heart, as well. Deeply engaged in conveying love and appreciation for someone who matters to you.
Mental, Emotional, and Physical Benefits
Throwing yourself into a love letter is a simple, beautiful way to make yourself feel better, and indeed, there is every indication that mindful writing exercises can alter our emotional landscapes and give those suffering from trauma or stress much-needed control and closure. A study conducted on expressive writing by psychologists James Pennebaker and Janet D. Seagal, indicated that writing down events and feelings alleviated stress because "the mind doesn't have to work as hard to bring structure and meaning [to difficult or traumatic events.] Constructing a narrative is similar to completing a job, allowing one to essentially forget the event," Pennebaker concluded.
Like writing a to-do list, there is power in expressing your thoughts and feelings because, once written down, your mind lets go, knowing the information is there, but not feeling the need to dwell or ruminate on it any longer. Not to mention that every time you check something off your to-do list, you get another hit of dopamine, and some research has even proven that writing can reduce your cholesterol levels!
When we see beauty, we naturally want to respond to it. When we feel joy, we want to express it. When we see a website devoted to trees, we want to anthropomorphize them. Expressing our feelings, our appreciation, our dilemmas and questions, and especially sharing our love and gratitude, quite simply, makes us feel good. It could be argued that the receiver gets more from the exchange than the writer, but science and the trees of Melbourne would disagree. Even knowing that the trees couldn’t read or write back, hundreds of letters still flooded in. Why? Because writing letters of love, recognition, and appreciation does something to our brains and bodies that no other form of communication can do.
The cure for much of what ails our fractured, anxious, pandemic-stricken world may well lie in something as simple as an envelope containing a lovely little literary love bomb just waiting to give the receiver all those same amazing physical and mental health benefits that the writer experienced when the pen first touched the paper and gratitude and love poured out.
Forget the apple. One love letter or thank-you note a day might just suffice to keep the doctor away.
For more information about Three Kindnesses, check out https://threekindnesses.com or follow us @3Kindnesses on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Angela C M Cox, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine After beginning her career as a college professor, Dr. Angela Cox has spent two decades in HR and Learning and Development at Fortune 500 companies. From designing meaningful learning experiences to facilitating leadership development programs and consulting around employee engagement and organizational effectiveness, she was consistently focused on how to increase employee satisfaction and psychological safety through deliberate acts of kindness and inclusion. Despite an ever-growing list of skills and credentials, Angela and her neurodivergent brain often found it difficult to fit in and to find places where she could do her best work. Finally, after years of toning down her passion and shaving on her quirky edges to try and fit into a corporate mold, Angela co-founded Three Kindnesses in order to give others the permission she always wanted in her own workplace environments. Permission for people to be themselves, quirky edges and all. An emerging voice of encouragement and inspiration in the neurodivergent community and an ambassador for deliberate, radical kindness, Angela is also the author of two soon-to-be-released books on "How to Be Kind" and a contributing writer to Entrepreneur's Leadership Network.
