Haiku and Healing

Abstract

Haiku poetry was investigated in the context of the expressive writing paradigm to evaluate its potential benefits. Participants, 98 introductory psychology students at a large southwestern university, wrote for 20 min a day on 3 consecutive days and completed self-report measures of happiness, life satisfaction, spiritual meaning, creativity, physiological symptomatology, depression, anxiety, and health/illness orientation at baseline and 3-week follow-up. A series of analysis of covariance linear contrasts were used to examine differences between groups writing narrative about a neutral topic, haiku about a neutral topic, haiku about nature, or haiku about a negative life event. Writing in narrative about a neutral topic led to decreases in anxiety and depression. Participants writing haiku about nature or a negative life event reported increased creativity, and writing haiku about nature led to decreased illness orientation. The present findings suggest that narrative writing leads to decreases in anxiety and depression, while haiku writing increases creativity and sensitivity to topic. The value of haiku and the arts are discussed for the writing paradigm and beyond.

Memes and Poetry

“…Haikus have been shown to increase creativity and sensitivity and provide HCWs with an opportunity to reflect on their experiences. 14,18 Wald 19 noted that reading and writing poetry is an effective tool to optimize resiliency and well-being in health care providers. Poetry therapy has been used in other areas, such as during mindfulness activities, to reduce stress and burnout in college students, those with posttraumatic stress disorders, and oncology patients.…”

“…While there is a scant amount of research on using memes, studies support the use of poetry as a type of art therapy. Haikus have been shown to increase creativity and sensitivity and provide HCWs with an opportunity to reflect on their experiences 14,18. Wald19 noted that reading and writing poetry is an effective tool to optimize resiliency and well-being in health care providers.…”

Untitled

“…Yet the more we delve into this poetic form, the greater is the pleasure. This pleasure arises from the image that a haiku creates before our eyes (Stephenson and Rosen, 2015). The generation of the image gives rise to the generation of theme.…”

Ambiguity Tolerance Can Improve through Poetry Appreciation and Creation

“…Furthermore, concerning physiological symptoms, the effect persisted during the four‐week follow‐up survey. Subsequent experiments have also shown that writing haiku increases individual creativity compared to writing narratives (Stephenson & Rosen, 2015). In light of the above findings on the appreciation and creation of poetry and haiku, this study aims to examine the impact of the appreciation and creation of haiku, a form of poetry, on ambiguity tolerance.…”