Hitbodedut

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772 to 1810) was a Hasidic master in what is now Ukraine. Alongside the set prayers of the day, he taught his followers something that surprised people at the time: go out alone, every day, ideally into the fields or the woods, and talk to God.

Not in fixed words, and not in Hebrew if that wasn't the language you thought in, but in your own everyday words, about everything. The argument with your wife. The money. The fear you haven't told anyone. He called it hitbodedut, from a root meaning "to be alone". When the words wouldn't come, he said, say exactly that: "I don't know what to say." That counts too.

Worry is good at staying half-formed. It loops in fragments: a picture, a phrase, a jolt of dread, then around again. You can carry it for weeks without once saying the whole thing.

Saying it out loud forces it into sentences, and sentences have to go somewhere. You hear what you actually think. Things that felt enormous sound smaller, and sometimes something you had been skirting around turns out to be the real worry.

Psychology has found something similar. In studies begun by James Pennebaker in the 1980s, people who wrote honestly about their hardest experiences for a few short sessions later made fewer visits to the doctor than people who wrote about everyday topics. The effects are modest and vary from study to study, but the core finding has held up: putting difficult things into words helps people make sense of them.

Dana's been tense for a week and can't say why. She decides to try hitbodedut on her lunch walk. She starts talking quietly: "Okay. Things are fine, really. Work is busy but good, which I'm grateful for. Mom's doing much better. I just need to be more organized and stop letting little things get to me." After a few minutes she gives up, because nothing came of it.