Reprint: How Writing Builds Resilience

 As a writer, I find this to be doubly true for fiction. Except for the part about writing by hand. I think it's fine to compose stories, especially novels, on a keyboard.

Writing builds resilience by changing your brain, helping you face everyday challenges

Writing is a way of thinking and doing. AscentXmedia/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Emily Ronay Johnston, University of California, Merced

Ordinary and universal, the act of writing changes the brain. From dashing off a heated text message to composing an op-ed, writing allows you to, at once, name your pain and create distance from it. Writing can shift your mental state from overwhelm and despair to grounded clarity — a shift that reflects resilience.

Psychology, the media and the wellness industry shape public perceptions of resilience: Social scientists study it, journalists celebrate it, and wellness brands sell it.

They all tell a similar story: Resilience is an individual quality that people can strengthen with effort. The American Psychological Association defines resilience as an ongoing process of personal growth through life’s challenges. News headlines routinely praise individuals who refuse to give up or find silver linings in times of hardship. The wellness industry promotes relentless self-improvement as the path to resilience.

In my work as a professor of writing studies, I research how people use writing to navigate trauma and practice resilience. I have witnessed thousands of students turn to the written word to work through emotions and find a sense of belonging. Their writing habits suggest that writing fosters resilience. Insights from psychology and neuroscience can help explain how.

Writing rewires the brain

In the 1980s, psychologist James Pennebaker developed a therapeutic technique called expressive writing to help patients process trauma and psychological challenges. With this technique, continuously journaling about something painful helps create mental distance from the experience and eases its cognitive load.

In other words, externalizing emotional distress through writing fosters safety. Expressive writing turns pain into a metaphorical book on a shelf, ready to be reopened with intention. It signals the brain, “You don’t need to carry this anymore.”

Sometimes you can write your way through difficult emotions. Grace Cary/Moment via Getty Images

Translating emotions and thoughts into words on paper is a complex mental task. It involves retrieving memories and planning what to do with them, engaging brain areas associated with memory and decision-making. It also involves putting those memories into language, activating the brain’s visual and motor systems.

Writing things down supports memory consolidation — the brain’s conversion of short-term memories into long-term ones. The process of integration makes it possible for people to reframe painful experiences and manage their emotions. In essence, writing can help free the mind to be in the here and now.

Taking action through writing

The state of presence that writing can elicit is not just an abstract feeling; it reflects complex activity in the nervous system.

Brain imaging studies show that putting feelings into words helps regulate emotions. Labeling emotions — whether through expletives and emojis or carefully chosen words — has multiple benefits. It calms the amygdala, a cluster of neurons that detects threat and triggers the fear response: fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It also engages the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that supports goal-setting and problem-solving.

In other words, the simple act of naming your emotions can help you shift from reaction to response. Instead of identifying with your feelings and mistaking them for facts, writing can help you simply become aware of what’s arising and prepare for deliberate action.

Even mundane writing tasks like making a to-do list stimulate parts of the brain involved in reasoning and decision-making, helping you regain focus.

Making meaning through writing

Short Book Review: A Romance Writer's Murder Confession

The Ghost Writer, by Alessandra Torre (Thomas & Mercer)

I first met Alessandra Torre through InkersCon, which offers in-person and virtual conferences for writers, mostly but not exclusively self-published romance writers. I found the virtual events energizing and worthwhile, in no small part due to Alessandra’s passion and knowledge. She often references her own work, comprising romance, contemporary fiction, and suspense/thriller (as A. R. Torre), so I decided to check it out. I knew she could teach (and organize!), but was this an instance of “those who cannot do, teach”? The answer was a resounding “No!” The Ghost Writer came out in 2017 and falls under the loose category of “domestic thriller.” It’s a gripping page-turner fired by the obsession of the narrator, a romance novelist named Helena Ross. At the beginning, Helena lets us know that she is dying (from cancer for which she inexplicably refuses to undergo treatment), that she is an utter perfectionist who cannot tolerate frailty in either herself or others (like her agent or her rival to the title Queen of Romance), and that, in her words, her final book is not a novel but a confession. If that isn’t enough, she has only three months to live, and every day the cancer steals more energy and focus. The only thing to do is hire a ghost writer, and the most likely—the only viable candidate—is her rival. This description falls far short of Helena’s vivid, idiosyncratic voice, the steadily increasing dramatic tension, the whiplash turns and revelations, and the ultimately satisfying if tragic ending.

Torre doesn’t pull any punches; she plays fair with the reader every step of the way in both what she hides, what she reveals, and how she creates one delusional “down the rabbithole” path after another. The book is an exemplar of precisely timed, nuanced details, superb handling of dramatic tension, and compelling emotions.

Reprint: What Can We Do After NoKings?

 

10 effective things citizens can do to make change in addition to attending a protest

A crowd gathered for a “No Kings” protest on October 18, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. Hasan Akbas/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shelley Inglis, Rutgers University

What happens now?

That may well be the question being asked by “No Kings” protesters, who marched, rallied and danced all over the nation on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025.

Pro-democracy groups had aimed to encourage large numbers of Americans to demonstrate that “together we are choosing democracy.” They were successful, with crowds turning out for demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns from Anchorage to Miami.

And while multiple GOP leaders had attacked the planned demonstrations, describing them as “hate America” rallies, political science scholars and national security experts agree that the current U.S. administration’s actions are indeed placing the world’s oldest continuous constitutional republic in jeopardy.

Once a democracy starts to erode, it can be difficult to reverse the trend. Only 42% of democracies affected by autocratization – a transformation in governance that erodes democratic safeguards – since 1994 have rebounded after a democratic breakdown, according to Swedish research institute V-Dem.

Often termed “democratic backsliding,” such periods involve government-led changes to rules and norms to weaken individual freedoms and undermine or eliminate checks on power exercised by independent institutions, both governmental and non-governmental.

Democracies that have suffered setbacks vary widely, from Hungary to Brazil. As a longterm practitioner of democracy-building overseas, I know that none of these countries rival the United States’ constitutional traditions, federalist system, economic wealth, military discipline, and vibrant independent media, academia and nonprofit organizations.

Even so, practices used globally to fight democratic backsliding or topple autocracies can be instructive.

In a nutshell: Nonviolent resistance is based on noncooperation with autocratic actions. It has proven more effective in toppling autocracies than violent, armed struggle.

But it requires more than street demonstrations.

One pro-democracy organization helps train people to use video to document abuses by government.

Tactics used by pro-democracy movements

So, what does it take for democracies to bounce back from periods of autocratic rule?

Broad-scale, coordinated mobilization of a sufficient percentage of the population against autocratic takeover and for a renewed democratic future is necessary for success.

That momentum can be challenging to generate. Would-be autocrats create environments of fear and powerlessness, using intimidation, overwhelming force or political and legal attacks, and other coercive tactics to force acquiescence and chill democratic pushback.

Autocrats can’t succeed alone. They rely on what scholars call “pillars of support” – a range of government institutions, security forces, business and other sectors in society to obey their will and even bolster their power grabs.

However, everyone in society has power to erode autocratic support in various ways. While individual efforts are important, collective action increases impact and mitigates the risks of reprisals for standing up to individuals or organizations.

Here are some of the tactics used by those movements across the world:

1. Refuse unlawful, corrupt demands

Reprint: Abortion Rights vs Authoritarianism

 

Banning abortion is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes

Abortion rights protesters march against Trump’s deployment of federal troops to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 2, 2025. Jose Luis Magana/AP

Seda Saluk, University of Michigan

Pregnant women crossing borders to get an abortion. People who miscarry facing jail time or dying from infection. Doctors who won’t perform lifesaving procedures on a pregnant patient for fear of prosecution.

For years, this was the kind of thing that happened in Poland, Nicaragua or El Salvador. Now, it’s headline news in the United States.

As a scholar who studies the relationship between reproductive rights and political regimes, I see the U.S. mirroring a pattern that has happened in authoritarian regimes around the world. When a government erects barriers to comprehensive reproductive care, it doesn’t just cause more death and suffering for women and their families. Such policies are often a first step in the gradual decline of democracies.

Yet, the U.S. is different in a meaningful way. Here, abortion has historically been framed as a personal right to privacy. In many other countries I’ve studied, abortion is viewed more as a collective right that is inextricably tied to broader social and economic issues.

The American individualist perspective on abortion can make it harder for people in the U.S. to understand why banning abortion can serve as a back door for the erosion of civil liberties – and of democracy itself.

Autocrats target abortion first

Restricting reproductive rights is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

From Benito Mussolini’s Italy in 1926 and Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1936 to Francisco Franco’s Spain in 1941 and Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania in 1966, the first move most 20th-century dictators made after seizing power was to criminalize abortion and contraception.

Initially, for some of those autocratic leaders, limiting access to abortion and contraception was a strategy to gain the approval of the nation’s religious leaders. The Catholic Church held great power in Italy and Spain, as did the Orthodox Church in Romania. At the time, these faiths opposed artificial birth control and still believe life begins at conception.

Restrictions on reproductive rights also aimed to increase birth rates following two world wars that had stamped out some of the population, particularly in the Soviet Union and Italy. Many political leaders saw procreation as a national duty. They designated women – white, heterosexual women, that is – specific roles, primarily as mothers, to produce babies as well as future soldiers and workers for their regimes.

Reprint: New (Green!) Life for Old Gas Wells

 

Geothermal energy has huge potential to generate clean power – including from used oil and gas wells

The world’s largest geothermal power station is under construction in Utah. Business Wire via AP

Moones Alamooti, University of North Dakota

As energy use rises and the planet warms, you might have dreamed of an energy source that works 24/7, rain or shine, quietly powering homes, industries and even entire cities without the ups and downs of solar or wind – and with little contribution to climate change.

The promise of new engineering techniques for geothermal energy – heat from the Earth itself – has attracted rising levels of investment to this reliable, low-emission power source that can provide continuous electricity almost anywhere on the planet. That includes ways to harness geothermal energy from idle or abandoned oil and gas wells. In the first quarter of 2025, North American geothermal installations attracted US$1.7 billion in public funding – compared with $2 billion for all of 2024, which itself was a significant increase from previous years, according to an industry analysis from consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

As an exploration geophysicist and energy engineer, I’ve studied geothermal systems’ resource potential and operational trade-offs firsthand. From the investment and technological advances I’m seeing, I believe geothermal energy is poised to become a significant contributor to the energy mix in the U.S. and around the world, especially when integrated with other renewable sources.

A May 2025 assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey found that geothermal sources just in the Great Basin, a region that encompasses Nevada and parts of neighboring states, have the potential to meet as much as 10% of the electricity demand of the whole nation – and even more as technology to harness geothermal energy advances. And the International Energy Agency estimates that by 2050, geothermal energy could provide as much as 15% of the world’s electricity needs.

For generations, Maori people in New Zealand, and other people elsewhere around the world, have made use of the Earth’s heat, as in hot springs, where these people are cooking food in the hot water. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

Why geothermal energy is unique

Geothermal energy taps into heat beneath the Earth’s surface to generate electricity or provide direct heating. Unlike solar or wind, it never stops. It runs around the clock, providing consistent, reliable power with closed-loop water systems and few emissions.