Writing Prescription
The purpose of a story is to bind up the wounds of the world. – Ursula K. Le Guin
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. – Gustave Flaubert by Martin Huecker, MD
Most of what we prescribe occupies a small percentage of a patient’ s time. Surgery, a few hours. Office visit: 15-20 minutes. A pill: seconds. The rest of the patient’ s day is largely outside of our reach. Practicing in the ER, I must accept that transient and chaotic interactions may not translate to meaningful changes once a patient gets home. But I now understand that the struggle to bridge the gap to a patient’ s home life also affects care in a calm office setting. Patients’ time is spoken for. Families need them. They must commute, then sit at a desk all day. I don’ t blame them for feeling frustrated. We all struggle to counteract this inertia of life. But I have a solution, a simple( but not easy) lifestyle change to catalyze an upward spiral into better health: writing.
Lifestyle changes
Lifestyle changes can completely transform health, and I start there with all patients. Exercise can take you out of your head( or into it). You can review recent events, plan ahead or“ embrace the suck” of exertion so life stressors sting less. Overhaul of nutrition can lead to major changes in energy and confidence. Improved sleep treats disease better than most drugs, providing lucidity and insight. Meditation leads to reflection and enhanced coping with stress; but it does not always lead to reorganization. Therapy is especially powerful by using skilled accountability to facilitate introspection. But therapy involves cost, driving and trusting another person.
Expressive Writing( also called Therapeutic Journaling) requires no other participants. In the bloated complex financial labyrinth that
14 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE