Talking about a negative emotion, even as inconsequentially as giving the feeling a name, can ease the pangs of sadness and anger, a study published in Psychological Science concludes.

From Reuters:

[Los Angeles researcher Matthew Lieberman] and colleagues scanned the brains of 30 people — 18 women and 12 men between 18 and 36 — who were shown pictures of faces expressing strong emotions.

They were asked to categorize the feelings in words like sad or angry, or to choose between two gender-specific names like “Sally or Harry” that matched the face.

What they found is that when people attached a word like angry to an angry-looking face, the response in the amygdala portion of the brain that handles fear, panic and other strong emotions decreased.

“This seems to dampen down the response in these basic emotional circuits in the brain — in this case the amygdala,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview.

So it appears there is some physiological basis for the improvement people find in talk therapy with a psychologist, or even in informal conversations with friends. I suspect the same holds true of writing as well. Blogging combines both; a talk with friends in written form.

Naming our demons can set us free.