Expressive Writing, Traumas and Health

I just finished reading one tough article titled: Expressive Writing, Emotional Upheavals, and Health by James W. Pennebaker and Cindy K. Chung.

Wow... incredible... I did not understand the material at all during my first reading... totally lost. Was supposed to do a presentation on this as part of my Knowledge Assets course requirements. This paper is published in a Health Psychology journal, but my group was asked to do this... strange ah? But I think the main crux of this paper maybe linked to the course after all. We, humans are also Knowledge Assets, so understanding ourselves could definitely be beneficial.

Anyway, back to the paper. In a nutshell, the paper suggests that writing expressively has certain health benefits.

Some of my notes indicate:

1) Writing forces people to stop and reevaluate their life circumstances.
2) Talking and Writing about emotional experiences are superior to writing about superficial topics.
3) Disclosure of writing of emotional events has broad benefits.
4) Timing of writing is important. Too early may have negative consequences. Sometimes, denial, detachment and distraction is healthy. However, prolonged thinking of the trauma in the following weeks and months would require expressive writing intervention and benefits will occur.

Interesting paper.... this means blogging about your feelings can actually help attain better health.

The Little Prince:

I have been reading a children's book, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery recently.

Surprisely, I find myself having difficulty understanding it on my first read. I was perhaps able to grasp the underlying message the author was trying to tell the reader. I don't know, but maybe it is meant to be read lesuirely as it is classified as a children's book.

But somehow, Saint-Exupery manages to tell the tale of the little prince and at the same time explores a very human condition of man. There are several characters which appears this novel which I trying to decipher:

(1) the King
(2) the Conceited Man
(3) the Drunkard
(4) the Businessman
(5) the Lamplighter
(6) the Geographer
(7) the Snake
(8) the Fox
(9) the Flower

Well... will repost my thoughts and reflections once I have gained a deeper understanding....

The Medici Effect: Free Download

The Medici Effect is now available for download for free here. Read the book last year, and it gave me a new perspective of innovative capacity.

My thoughts on it... Risk Taking and Breaking out of comfort zone and into different networks of one's life to gain new perspectives.

Rating: **** Stars

Harbinger to Global Slowdown or Crisis

The recent episodes of stock markets melting down and the story SG losses in the derivatives market is just a small taste of what I think is going to be a slowdown or crisis that will blow the entire world.

The US sub-prime loans had been on the horizon since early 2007 and it has now shown its teeth twice, first during June-July 2007 and now January 2008. It seems that cycle of boom-bust had shortened to half-yearly episodes.

With current increasing prices in everything from fuel, food to other commodities, a slowdown might not be necessary bad thing, considering that it will help moderate the prices down to acceptable levels. The idea of a economic slowdown may not appeal to many, but in my mind, a slowdown can actually help bring more sanity to the incredible prices of property, stocks and other asset-inflating bubbles. Although, it has not reached the levels of tulip-mania, I feel the euphoria of the past couple of years has really brought a level of over-valuation on everything.

Comparatively, a full blown crisis will not be a welcome event of course. I have been reading that people think that Asia will not be affected significantly as we now have more rising consumption of India and China. But I beg to differ. The global economic machinery cogwheels are all interlinked. Any part that is being damaged will definitely impact on others. The domino effect cannot be discounted. The only problem is that such economic meltdown can just occur in a flash, a disruptive event that can just pop out of nowhere. Globalization has made us all highly depedent on each other.

Furthermore, the US has a lame duck president at least until November 2008. With the Iraq quagmire unsettled, the incoming president could either be an elderly gentlemen, a woman or a African-American, which the US has not have had before. How can this affect his/her effectiveness, no-one can be sure, but definitely sweeping world events can be overwhelming and determine whether his/her legacy can endure for generations to judge.

So, where does it leave Average Joe in this uncertain times? Well, just be prepared I guess... and adopt some prudent measures like keeping enough cash, limit investments to dividend yielding instruments, and avoiding large purchases at least for the time being.