Researchers at the University of Missouri have discovered that writing about emotional trauma increases your sense of well being:
Researchers asked 49 college students to take two minutes on two consecutive days and write about something they found to be emotionally important. The student saw immediate rise in mood and performed better on standardized measures of physiological well-being.
One of the key points of the study was that the length of time spent writing required to achieve beneficial effects was lower than previously thought.
As with keeping a diary, getting your thoughts down in text can be an aid to happiness as well as helping with your writing ability.