Keeping A Diary

Sunday, August 9, 2026

Can Keeping a Journal Make You Happier?

From psychologytoday.com

Writing about the bad can be good for you

Many people associate diary-keeping with the tortured musings of adolescents dealing with romantic crushes or social isolation.

There is some truth to this stereotype, since a 2023 survey by Statista found that fully one fifth of American participants aged 14 to 25 engaged in journaling to help them manage their mental health. Yet adults actually may do so at even higher rates: a 2025 YouGov survey found that only 47 percent of respondents said they “never” write about their personal thoughts.

But what makes this activity so popular? The simple answer is that it seems to make you feel better.

This intuitive belief has been the subject of much research on what researchers call expressive writing or emotional disclosure. Crucially, this refers to writing down one’s feelings and reactions as opposed to just recording the events of one’s day.

What Research Tells Us About the Benefits of Emotional Disclosure

James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, conducted pioneering work on this topic beginning in the 1980s. He and his collaborators asked college students to write about traumatic personal experiences for short periods across several days. Compared to a control group writing about mundane topics, those who had written about their significant emotional experiences were found to benefit in a variety of ways.

Across Pennebaker's studies, it's been demonstrated that the expressive writing participants report lower levels of distress and depression, fewer physical symptoms, and even better grades. The researchers also documented, in follow-ups with these participants, fewer visits to physicians and even long-term immune function improvements in the days and months following their expressive writing (Pennebaker, 1997).

In other words, writing about emotional events may not just make you happier—it may also make you healthier.

Researchers later combined the results of many similar studies to conduct meta-analyses of this research. Frattaroli (2006) included 146 studies in her analysis and found small but significant beneficial effects for expressive writing. A later meta-analysis by Guo (2023), which included studies employing longer-term follow-ups, also reported a beneficial effect.

In 2009, UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman and his collaborators described a possible physiological mechanism to explain why such writing is helpful. Research participants in a neuroimaging study were asked to provide a verbal label for an affective display, such as an angry face. Compared to a control group, these participants showed greater activity in a part of the brain that dampens the neural activity associated with strong emotions (Lieberman et al., 2007).

In other words, the act of identifying or describing negative emotions may help to attenuate them.

Does Writing Always Help Us Feel Better?

It should be noted, however, that expressive writing isn’t some magical elixir. One important caveat is that, immediately after writing about traumatic events, participants in research studies frequently report feeling worse—not better.

This phenomenon was first noted by Pennebaker and Beall (1986), and several later studies have also observed this effect. Some researchers have reported that the negative feelings may persist for an hour or two—making it comparable to the short-term decline in mood after watching a sad movie.

Still, even these brief episodes of negative affect may be one of the reasons that so many people abandon journaling or keeping a diary after only a few days. This is unfortunate, because it means that they never reap the long-term benefits of writing about their feelings.

It’s also the case that people who tend to ruminate—that is, those who engage in repetitive and prolonged thinking about negative experiences—may be adversely affected by engaging in expressive writing.

A study by David Sbarra and his collaborators found that, among research participants who had recently separated from a spouse, those who scored high on a measure of rumination reported more distress following sessions in which they wrote about the dissolution of their marriage. In addition, these negative effects persisted for up to nine months following the writing sessions (Sbarra et al., 2013).

Another study found that an expressive writing intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic had the effect of elevating participants’ stress levels, and these effects were still seen at a one-month follow-up (Vukčević Marković et al., 2020). However, this result may only obtain when people are experiencing a high degree of fear or uncertainty—such as during a global health crisis.

In general, however—for most people and most of the time—writing or journaling about one’s emotional experiences can pay lasting dividends. Short-term negative effects are typically transitory, and the benefits can be long lasting.

References

Frattaroli, J. (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 823-865.

Guo, L. (2023). The delayed, durable effect of expressive writing on depression, anxiety, and stress: A meta-analytic review of studies with long-term follow-ups. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(1), 272-297.

Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labelling disrupts amygdala. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421-428.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/small-talk-and-big-questions/202608/can-keeping-a-journal-make-you-happier

Friday, August 7, 2026

How a diary entry solved the murder of a missing man

From bbc.co.uk

When Det Con Tom Ryan came across a diary entry about an old cattle trailer in July 2025, he knew he had finally solved the murder of a man who had disappeared six years earlier.

Richard Dyson vanished without trace in November 2019. He was last seen alive on 17 November that year and was reported missing eight days later when he failed to meet his daughter, Bethany.

"He was by all accounts a very good father, and he was regularly in contact with his daughter Bethany who was, I believe, 19 at the time of his disappearance. It was totally out of character," Ryan recalled.

"It was clear that he had disappeared off the face of the Earth."

Richard, who was 55 at the time, had been living in his car at Parkside Cottage on Christopher Wright's farm on Sheffield Road in Barnsley, helping with small jobs around the farm.

The farm was searched, but other than a collection of illegal weapons belonging to Wright, nothing more unusual was found and there was no sign of Richard.

His phone, however, showed it had never left the farm.

Police believed from the outset that Richard had been killed and that Wright and his childhood friend, Karl Schwalbe, were responsible, according to Ryan.

"We very much suspected their involvement, but without a body it's very difficult to prove murder," he said.

On 28 July, Wright, 73, and Schwalbe, 72, were convicted for their roles in Richard's disappearance and murder, ending a six-year wait for answers for Richard's family.

At a sentencing hearing at Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday, Wright was jailed for 35 years for murder and Schwalbe was given a three-year sentence for perverting the course of justice.

Richard Dyson (left) vanished without a trace in 2019 and Christopher Wright (right) was found guilty of his murder in July this year

But how did police finally catch them?

Nearly six years had passed when Ryan reviewed phone records relevant to the case.

Among several calls made by Wright, one to Ian Ollerenshaw on 20 November 2019 caught his attention.

"I went round to Ian's house and I asked him, 'Can you by any way remember that phone call that you received over six years ago' - and, to be entirely honest, I expected him to say no," he said.

But the farmer, who lives at Alderthwaite Farm, just over a mile from Parkside Cottage, did remember.

More remarkably, he produced a leather diary from 2019, in which he had noted that Wright had stopped by to drop off an old trailer.

"As soon as I spoke to Ian and he remembered the phone call and he said 'the trailer is still here, do you want to go and see it' - as soon as he said that, I knew I'd found Richard," said Det Con Ryan.

The farmer told him the trailer had been sitting padlocked and undisturbed in the corner of a field for years.

By the time Det Con Ryan came across it, it was partially obscured by overgrown hedges and long grass.

A large, enclosed trailer standing on a patch of dry grass and dirt in an outdoor yard surrounded by trees and miscellaneous stored materials.The trailer is painted predominantly blue and has a weathered appearance, with visible rust, dirt and wear on the metal frame. It is mounted on two axles with four large tyres, which are also worn and muddy. The structure is tall and box-shaped, with curved metal roofing panels running along the top. A metal rail framework extends above the roof, creating a raised rack-like structure around the upper edge of the trailer. The side of the trailer is made up of multiple blue metal panels secured by hinges and fasteners. Near the front left side, there is a small access door with a handle. The rear section consists of large wooden panels framed by blue metal supports. The wood is heavily weathered and discoloured, with patches of green staining or moss growth visible across the surface. — Image caption,
*Richard Dyson's body was found inside an old cattle trailer on a farm in Barnsley*

Most of the trailer was empty, but about a third of it was crammed from floor to ceiling with junk.

And there, tucked away in a corner and covered by a baby changing mat, was a blue barrel.

"The barrel was full of concrete, but it quite clearly had human bones protruding out of the top of it," said Det Con Ryan.

A post-mortem examination later confirmed the bones belonged to Richard and that he had been shot with a shotgun before his body was dismembered, placed inside the barrel and encased in concrete.

A jury would later hear how Wright had worked as a butcher for several years in the 1970s.

Alongside Richard's remains, police found something else that would help them bring the person responsible for his murder to justice - an ID card in the name of Christopher Wright.

Wright and Schwalbe were both arrested the same day.

A worn and heavily stained paper card or document inside what appears to be a transparent plastic sleeve. The document is lying on a rough wooden or cardboard surface and is covered with dirt, scratches, dark marks, and signs of age, making much of the text difficult to read. The card contains printed text in black capital letters. The upper section appears to read:
WORSBIRD
COMMUNITY PROGRAMME
AIRFIELD GARAGE
HOYLAND COMMON
BARNSLEY
Some letters are obscured by dirt and damage, so parts of the text are difficult to confirm with complete certainty. — Image caption,
*Christopher Wright's ID was found by police inside the trailer*

Between 2019 and 2023, police had spent more than 286 hours searching Parkside Cottage.

But what they found during their searches in 2025 dwarfed their earlier discoveries.

Instead of a handful of firearms they had discovered previously, officers found an arsenal of weapons, including dozens of guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, swords, 30 to 40 axes, daggers, crossbows and even tripwires.

"It's obviously a man who has a fascination with weaponry," Det Con Ryan said.

"It is the most weapons that I've ever known to be found in a person's house.

"He had as many weapons and guns as you would need to arm an army."

CCTV footage of Richard's last movements on 17 November 2019 further supported what officers already knew - Wright had been the last person to see him alive.

The cameras captured Richard returning to Wright's farm shortly after 23:00 GMT.

About 20 minutes later, Wright called his friend, Schwalbe. The first call went unanswered, but minutes later a second call, lasting only a few seconds, connected.

Not long after, footage showed Schwalbe's car making its way towards Wright's farm.

"The extent of the physical assistance that Schwalbe provided to Wright is unknown to everybody other than the two men," said Ryan.

"What is known is that Schwalbe could on any day in the last seven years have helped stop the suffering of Richard's family, but he chose not to."

Three days after Richard's disappearance, bank transactions showed Wright went to Allendale Building Supplies in Hoyland.

While it was never proved, it was suggested he went there to buy cement.

A close-up photograph of a lined notebook page shows a handwritten note in cursive ink that appears to read: “Chris Wright dropped an old trailer here?" — Image caption,
*The fateful entry from Ian Ollerenshaw's diary*

Long before Wright's and Schwalbe's trial began, prosecutors expected Wright to argue that someone else must have been responsible for Richard's disappearance and murder.

But senior crown prosecutor Jamie Barton said the investigation consistently pointed in one direction.

"All lines led to Mr Wright and Mr Schwalbe," she said.

However, she said the six-year gap between Richard's disappearance and the discovery of his body left investigators with limited forensic evidence, poorer-quality CCTV than would be expected today and little mobile phone data.

Even the murder weapon remained elusive, with none of the weapons seized presenting a link to Richard's fatal injuries.

Although prosecutors did not have to prove motive, Barton said detectives uncovered evidence supporting long-standing rumours that Richard had stolen from Wright and, therefore, Wright killed him.

"It's a case theory, it's not something that we can be certain of - but it's one thing that is relevant," she said.

During the trial, jurors were played a covert recording of a conversation between the two men outside Barnsley Police Station.

On the recording, Wright can be heard apologising to his friend for getting him into trouble and Schwalbe saying he wished he had never gone to the farm that night.

In another recording, Wright can be heard praying.

"He was saying things along the lines of 'I only did what I had to survive, they bit the hand that fed them, I hope the police don't find my weapons'," said Ryan.