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THE MORNING PAGES

What are the morning pages?

Also called 750 words, the Morning Pages are a writing tool that help you practice daily writing. You're free to write about whatever you want, be it: journaling, brainstorming, or fostering creativity.

The idea is that you write three pages (750 words) first thing in the morning, every day. This encourages "stream-of-consciousness" writing which allows you to pull raw thoughts out of the mind and onto paper (or screen), which is a reliable way to process and understand your thoughts and feelings.


This is first mentioned in the book "The artist's way" by Julia Cameron, released in 1992, and she talks about how it helped her and many other artist friends get past their writers block by giving them their own safe place, a no-judgement zone, so to learn how to deal with the "Censor".
The "Censor" is referenced many times in the first chapter of the book, it is our inner voice, our personal critic, which tends to scare and silence our inner child, and our inner child being the one who contains our creative thinking. It is something that many people have nurtured over time, and it is built on insecurity and unrealistic societal norms, which ends up ruining our artistic and creative side, leading to a writers block, or it can silence us which can cause the bottling up of our emotions.


Many people struggle with self-doubt, perfectionism and fear of judgement which can shut out our creative expression. The more the Censor dominates our thoughts, the easier it is to become habituated to it. Allowing it to take over us is not going to be good in the long run.

The problem some people run into is that they don't want to start doing something, painting for example, because they are "bad at it", but if you don't start practicing then you won't go anywhere with it

Journaling in itself isn't a new thing, and there's plenty of research showing that it has benefits, what's been shown to be the most effective is Expressive writing, by paying more attention to feelings, than the events or people in the contents of a narrative. "It is not so much what happened as it is how you feel about what happened or is happening"

"The intention of expressive writing is to help you gain insight into your own emotional and mental state, to better understand and come to terms with your experiences, and to support healing and personal growth."

Expressive Writing shows benefits such as alleviating symptoms of anxiety and depression, reducing physical stress and enhancing cognitive function. And writing can help us gain new perspectives on difficult situations.

A really big issue now is Digital Overload, I might sound cheesy as hell but hear me out: smartphones, social media and the news outlets bombard us with notifications. These are built to keep our eyes on the screen for as long as possible, which allows the companies to show more ads, they are doing the food equivalent of force-feeding candy, and too much candy is going to make us forget how good a simple meal tastes, and that isn't healthy.

This leaves very little room for uninterrupted thought and mind-wandering which are important for creativity and self-reflection. Writing is a way to give yourself some alone time, an essential part for personal growth and well-being.

So how can I try it?

Starting to write is pretty easy, you can grab a pen and paper, or you can do it on your computer, there is a website for 750 Words [a] (Morning Pages) where you can write and it even gives you statistics on word count, distractions, moods and topics. I personally use Obsidian, it is a note-taking application, and it's a great way to have it all organized on your own computer.
Physically writing is recommended by Dr. Alok Kanojia in a nice YouTube video [b], as you take longer to write down whatever is on your mind, it gives you more time to process your feelings.

"Exposing yourself to the negative thoughts you may be having (via journaling) can act as a form of exposure therapy, wherein your mind becomes more accustomed to the discomfort of having these thoughts, and thereby allows you to explore these thoughts from a more resilient and productive perspective." - Increase our tolerance to negative emotions

What's really important is to start writing and being consistent, it can be once a week, or every day like the Morning Pages for 10, 20, 30 minutes or even an hour, whichever is more comfortable for you. You can write about how your day or week went, an argument you had, or a situation that triggered you emotionally. Many people post their writing prompts on Reddit [c] too if you don't know where to start. But the idea of the Morning Pages is to bring stuff out from the unconscious mind, and to expand on it. And it's okay to be repetitive, if you want you can write about that.

Personal Experience

I've been writing the Morning Pages for the past 3 months, but I actually started 5 months ago and gave up after a week and a half because it felt more like a chore than a tool. I was forcing myself to write the 750 Words and they didn't mean much to me, so as soon as the motivation ran out, I stopped. After a 2 month break I decided to start over again after running into some personal issues, this ended up giving me a sense of direction when writing.

I thought I was a very self-aware person, but as it turns out I was actually at the first peak in the Dunning-Kruger graph, overestimating myself quite a bit. This turned into something that I wanted to work on. I also started to see improvements in my working memory too. Bottling up emotions and avoiding past issues brought some side-effects which made me believe I had ADHD at times. As I've started to alleviate these symptoms, I'm seeing positive changes in certain aspects of my life.

I also enjoy writing about certain situations, analyzing them and trying to understand what happened and if I did something wrong. I can catch myself sometimes trying to censor certain parts that happened to protect myself from negative emotions, and when that happens I try to write about it.

Over time, I've also come to find writing enjoyable and finding ways to improve my writing. For example, avoiding the repetition of the "I's" and also trying to expand my vocabulary.

Research on writing

Expressive writing: (Klein, K., & Boals, A. 2001)

>39 participants were asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings in regards to going to college, and 38 participants were asked to write on a non-stressful event, time management. Three writing periods lasting 20 minutes each were scheduled during the following 2-week period, their working memory was tested using standard cognitive tasks before starting their writing period and after finishing their writing period.

3MMM: (Thoele et al., 2019)

>3MMM consists of the health care practitioner and the patient/family writing concurrently, using the prompts: "1. Write 3 things you're grateful for (be specific); 2. Write the story of your life in 6 words; 3. Write 3 wishes you have." And after writing, the practitioner invites the participants to share between them what they have written.

Conclusion

The first study concluded that participants who wrote about traumatic or emotional experiences showed a significant increase in working memory capacity, even many weeks after writing compared to those who wrote about neutral topics. Those who wrote about neutral topics did not show significant change (in working memory capacity), as their scores on working memory tasks remained consistent.

Emotional processing was identified as the key mechanism behind these improvements in working memory capacity, as it allows individuals to make sense of their experiences and reduce the cognitive burden of unresolved emotions, all in just 3 days of writing.

Although 3 days may seem a short period of time, other successful studies from the same era, including those of James W. Pennebaker, who also did his experiments in the 3-4 day intervals, showed successful results. *The limited duration was due to the fact that they could only rent rooms for that amount of time.


The second study found that families who had never tried journaling before experienced significant stress relief from trying it. Participants reported reduced stress compared to their baseline measurements at the start of the study.

What does this mean

These studies show that if you want to see significant changes, then you should do more expressive writing. While it can be challenging to break down emotional events, the benefits are substantial:

  1. reduced stress;
  2. increased working memory capacity;
  3. and fewer intrusive thoughts.
    4.

When it comes to Julia Cameron's book, she shares stories of people who have used the Morning Pages to unblock their creative writing. Like a music critic starting to compose after a very long hiatus, a woman who rediscovered her passion for painting, playing the piano and typewriting. There was also a man who agreed to write the pages only because he was getting paid, and he started to unleash his creativity, he bought guitar strings for his old guitar, rewired a stereo to listen to some records, and found his writer's block was gone.


Quotes from the book:
> "Morning pages are nonnegotiable. Never skip or skimp on morning pages. Your mood doesn't matter. The rotten thing your Censor says doesn't matter. We have this idea that we need to be in the mood to write. We don't."

> "Morning pages will teach you that your mood doesn't really matter. Some of the best creative work gets done on the days when you feel that everything you're doing is just plain junk. The morning pages will teach you to stop judging and just let yourself write."

> "It is very difficult to complain about a situation morning after morning, month after month, without being moved to constructive action. The pages lead us out of despair and into undreamed-of solutions."

Resources

  1. The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron
  2. https://750words.com/ - Return
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNJO1pZV-I8
    *Moment mentioned is at 14:20 but the whole video is a great watch - Return
  4. https://www.reddit.com/r/Journaling/comments/kvn32r/302_journal_prompts_ive_compiled_over_the_past/ - Return

Source? Right'ere buddy

  1. https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/expressive-writing - Return
  2. Utah State University. (n.d.). Processing tough emotions using expressive writing. USU. https://extension.usu.edu/relationships/faq/processing-tough-emotions-using-expressive-writing
  3. Evans, J. F., EdD. (2012, August 15). What’s on your mind and in your heart? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/write-yourself-well/201208/expressive-writing
  4. View of Expressive writing in school children: Effects on well-being and working memory. (n.d.). https://www.jowr.org/jowr/article/view/585/475
  5. _APA PsycNet_. (n.d.). https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-18060-012 Klein, K., & Boals, A. (2001). Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 130(3), 520–533. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.130.3.520
  6. Thoele, D. G., Gunalp, C., Baran, D., Harris, J., Moss, D., Donovan, R., Li, Y., & Getz, M. A. (2019b). Health care practitioners and families Writing Together: The Three-Minute Mental Makeover. The Permanente Journal, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.7812/tpp/19.056
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