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This study tested the lower boundary of the dosage required to garner health benefits from written emotional expression. Participants wrote about either a personal trauma, a positive life experience, or a control topic for 2 minutes each day for 2 days. Emotion word usage in the essays was examined and physical health complaints were measured 4-6 weeks after the last writing session. Trauma and positive experience essays contained more emotional content than the control essays and such content was of a similar percentage to that demonstrated by past research. Both the trauma and the positive experience conditions reported fewer health complaints at follow-up than the control condition.
Burton et al. (Wed,) studied this question.