Well based upon my own experiences of blogging, I would say that most of my experiences have been good as far as blogging is concerned. The reason for writing this post is I came across a article on Discoveries website which speaks about this very thing.

How it helps

Blogging as a medium has a social aspect to it, which means you can tend to feel less lonely in your everyday life if you don’t come into contact with other people very often, also you have freedom to express yourself in writing, this can be very therapeutic if you have something on your mind that you would like to get off your chest. Lots of people write about lots of different topics as far as blogging is concerned whether it be a health problem, or what you did today it doesn’t really matter.

Blogging as a whole can give you a sense of community very much the same as in the real world when someone leaves a comment on your blog, it can mean such a lot especially if it is a positive one, you will get negative ones but that is just the very nature of blogging. Comments as a whole are a great way to get to know other bloggers.

The study information

In the study that was conducted it was found that the participants that blogged, felt that they were more socially supported, than those who didn’t blog. The mental health of people hadn’t blogged previously were put side-by-side, to see what differences there were, the researchers messaged 600 members on my space.com, who filled out a questionnaire. They said that what they would call potential bloggers felt less satisfied as people.

They felt they had no community connection with other people and felt more isolated and therefore a lot less happier, and they were far more likely to use vented anger, as well as expressing their emotions.

When they were more inclined to become bloggers it was as if they were saying to themselves “I’m going to do this because I know it will help me”.

Two months later the potential bloggers were asked the same questions again about how they felt as people. This time round they said they found that they felt a sense of community, with other people because they were interacting with other people whom were doing the same activity as them.

Also some participants who didn’t blog but networked socially through my space felt less stressed and depressed over the two-month study period.

How blogging helped me

Well firstly when I started this blog initially it was my way of documenting my weight loss journey but now it has evolved way beyond that now, for instance when I first started trying to lose weight I used to document my weekly weigh-ins. People would come along and leave a comment, and tell you how well you were doing which is like having support in the real world, in order to help you towards your goal. Which gives you moral support very much like in the real world.

But other aspects of it are doing the research for posts you become very knowledgeable about what foods to eat, which stop cravings and leave you feeling fuller for longer, what kind of exercise will give you the best benefits. I don’t think if I would have started this blog that I would know what I do now about food nutrition etc and exercise.

Also it gives you a focus, when you’re bored you’re far more likely to eat food rather than if you are doing something ,I know it tends to work for me. I eat far less when I am writing posts than I would do if I was doing some other activity such as watching television.

Conclusion

I would say that from my point of view I would agree with everything that has been said as regards the study, it would be interesting if anyone else reading this would be able to add their own experiences by leaving a comment thus proving that the theory of this does work.

So if you have had any positive experiences from blogging then please let us know.

Source Discovery

When I get the book I’ll do a full review of it, things it covers are.

• Defining your blogs purpose
• Build a plan for your blog
• How to write content that gets noticed which is interesting to your readers
• How to have your own style and blogging voice
• Using keywords and search terms in your posts
• How to get your readers to do a response leave a comment
• How to handle comment spam
• New SEO technique’s how Google Page Rank works
• Use pod casts to improve rankings as well as video and other multimedia options
• Blog burnout tips to prevent it
• Blog administration
• Defing a blog action plan in case of a disaster
• Using social networking as a means of interaction
• How to respond to copyright issues
• Your blogger rights

I must say I am quite looking forward to getting this book and reading it.

Here is the link for it ecto tutorial ,just a amendment to this post some people might be thinking where can I get ecto from, so here is a link to the site ecto blog editor my experience with this software is really good I would highly recommend it to anyone who is a serious blogger,

I give it 10/10