For thousands of years, humans have turned to words to process emotion and make sense of life’s hardest moments. We tell our stories around campfires, confide in friends, write in journals, and talk about our deepest thoughts and feelings with therapists. Over 40 years of research on expressive writing programs confirms just how powerful words can be: when people write about stressful life events, they often experience measurable health benefits in the months following their writing—from fewer doctor visits and stronger immune function to better outcomes for conditions like asthma and arthritis.

But why do words help us heal?

Some psychologists nod to Freud: Words give us a way to surface buried feelings and release their grip. A more contemporary view is that words help us reshape our emotional memories: by narrating our experiences, we don’t just recall them, we have the opportunity to reconsolidate these memories into more benign forms. When we tell the story of our pain, we’re reorganizing emotional memories, opening the door for new meaning and resolution.

While scientists have long recognized the benefits of putting feelings into words, few anticipated how swiftly and profoundly generative

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