James Pennebaker’s top tips for expressive writing

• Ask yourself if you need to write. If you find yourself thinking about something too much, dreaming about it or obsessing about it in some way, writing could be beneficial.
• Promise yourself you’ll write for a minimum of 15 minutes a day for three or four days.
• Don’t worry about spelling.
• Write for yourself, not for an audience: this is not a letter to someone, this is for you.
• Plan on destroying what you’ve written, though whether or not you actually destroy it doesn’t matter.