Years ago, when Sheppard Kominars found himself held hostage to crippling migraines, he turned to the page for escape. At the suggestion of his family doctor, he began keeping a journal.

At first, Kominars didn’t see the point. “In my imagination,” he writes, “I saw adolescent girls writing ‘Dear Diary’ in their notebooks. That’s just not me! I thought. I can’t do that!” As his writing sessions continued, however, he found that journal writing helped him “launch the day from a better place in myself.”