Feeling angry? Writing down and throwing away those thoughts can calm you down, Japan study reveals

Writing down your thoughts can ease anger – but the notes must be thrown away afterward.

A study in Japan purposely irritated volunteers by asking them to write negative feelings on social issues but those who were told to throw what they had penned in the bin seemed to experience a rapid calming effect as their levels of rage, on a scale of one to six, quickly dropped to where they were prior to the experiment.

On the other hand, those who kept their note continued to feel anger.

Nobuyuki Kawai, lead author of the study at Nagoya University, said: “We expected that our method would suppress anger. However, we were amazed that anger was eliminated almost entirely.”

The study only featured 50 participants but Kawai is convinced that the method could help people who find themselves in stressful situations at work. It was inspired by the Japanese tradition known as hakidashisara, where people smash small discs representing things that anger them (and there’s also an annual festival based on it).

He said: “This technique could be applied in the moment by writing down the source of anger, as if taking a memo, and then throwing it away.”