Too too weird

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A Healthy Use of Pronouns

Want to live long and be healthy? Write down: " I, my, it, you, me, she, he,

her, we, they, your, him, his, them, our, myself, their, us and its. "

Repeat every day.

In an unusual example of your tax dollars at work, psychologists have

determined that the frequent use of different pronouns is a

powerful predictor of better health.

" It does sound weird, " said Pennebaker, a psychologist at the

University of Texas at Austin, who published the finding in theJanuary issue

of Psychological Science. " As it turns out, pronouns are really important --

they are reflecting people's identity and relationships with others. "

Pennebaker analyzed writing samples from 183 students and maximum-security

prisoners. Earlier research had found that when the

volunteers were asked to write about emotional and nonemotional topics for

15 to 20 minutes every day, those who drew on their

deepest feelings and wrote about their most traumatic experiences

eventually had fewer doctors' visits, better immune system functioning,

lower stress and various social and cognitive benefits.

Later, Pennebaker and graduate student Sherlock analyzed the

writing again with a grant from the National Institute of

Mental Health, and tied the better health status specifically to using 19

different pronouns. Individuals who changed pronouns

frequently in their writing -- going from " I did this, I did that " on one

day to " he did this, he did that " on the next -- were seeing the

world from a variety of perspectives, which apparently has health benefits,

Pennebaker said.

Adeptly changing pronouns themselves throughout their scientific paper, the

psychologists wrote: " Our conclusion that changes in pronoun use predict

health is a rather bold and, at the same time, enigmatic statement. "