Relationship between diary-keeping and tendencies toward alexithymia and rumination.

Relationships between diary-keeping and tendencies toward alexithymia and rumination were studied in 118 Japanese participants. Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed diary-keeping habits (both regular and Web diaries), alexithymia, and rumination. Individuals who wrote about their daily events epically (i.e., focusing on actions and events) in a regular diary considered both identifying and describing their feelings and controlling negative rumination to be less difficult than those who wrote lyrically (i.e., focusing on emotions). Those people who sometimes kept a diary on the Internet reported it was more difficult to both identify and describe their feelings and control negative rumination than those who did not write at all.