EasyBreezyMind
1 peer-reviewed source, DOI-verifiedUpdated Oct 1, 2026How we verify
Before a big test, anxious thoughts can crowd out everything else. This randomized trial tested whether daily writing about positive emotions could help.
| Study type | Randomized controlled trial |
|---|---|
| Who took part | 75 senior high-school students with high test anxiety (screened from 200) |
| What was compared | 20 minutes a day of writing about positive emotions vs. writing down daily events, for 30 days |
| Published | PLOS ONE, 2018 |
| Free to read | Full text on PubMed Central |
| Licence | Open access, Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) |
What the researchers did
Students were screened with the Test Anxiety Scale. Those with high anxiety were randomized to positive expressive writing or to a control writing task, and were re-tested after a month. Their writing was also analysed for word categories.
What they found
- The writing group scored significantly lower on test anxiety than the control group after the month.
- Using more positive-emotion and insight words was linked to lower test anxiety.
- Across the month, the students’ writing shifted in positive emotion, anxiety and insight categories.
What this doesn’t prove
- The participants were high-school students in China; results may differ elsewhere and at other ages.
- Writing every day for 30 days is a sizeable commitment.
- It focused on test anxiety, not anxiety in general.
How to use this
Try the “Positive moment” prompt in our Expressive Writing tool before a big day. Your writing stays on your device.
Students with high test anxiety who wrote about positive emotions for 20 minutes a day for 30 days scored significantly lower on test anxiety than students who simply wrote down daily events.
Summary written by EasyBreezyMind in our own words. Original article: Shen L, Yang L, Zhang J, Zhang M (2018). Benefits of expressive writing in reducing test anxiety: A randomized controlled trial in Chinese samples. PLOS ONE. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0191779. © The authors. Published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This summary is educational and is not endorsed by the authors.