Science Proves What We Knew Is True
Those of us in the counseling-type fields have more than enough anecdotal evidence to prove that more often than not talking helps. We have seen over and over again that bringing feelings into the open will help ease them. We have experienced in ourselves and those we work with that an openness and honesty about internal things seems to ease their pain and control over us. But we have never been able to prove the process.

Well, now we know that it truly is happening and while it may very well be "all in your head," that in reality means that something significant is taking place in your head- in your brain itself- that shows that it isn't just faking it. Here from LiveScience today:

If you name your emotions, you can tame them, according to new research that suggests why meditation works.

Brain scans show that putting negative emotions into words calms the brain's emotion center. That could explain meditation’s purported emotional benefits, because people who meditate often label their negative emotions in an effort to “let them go.”

“In the same way you hit the brake when you’re driving when you see a yellow light, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses,” Lieberman said of his study, which is detailed in the current issue of Psychological Science.

In a second experiment they asked about "mindfulness" which is a key idea of meditation:

Meditation and other “mindfulness” techniques are designed to help people pay more attention to their present emotions, thoughts and sensations without reacting strongly to them. Meditators often acknowledge and name their negative emotions in order to “let them go.”

When the team compared brain scans from subjects who had more mindful dispositions to those from subjects who were less mindful, they found a stark difference—the mindful subjects experienced greater activation in the right ventrolateral prefrontral cortex and a greater calming effect in the amygdala after labeling their emotions.

Some of the research in brain function and chemistry today is downright exciting and even revolutionary. It places many things we have always considered as "non-physical" firmly within the biophysical and biochemical parts of who we are. It is truly not some ethereal, thought-based occurrence but has a basis in real, chemical and electrical reaction.

Meditate on that the next time you are feeling down.