The Vampire Diaries turn out to have a social benefit after all. New research shows that committing problems to paper in a diary helps students score higher on tests.

Researchers investigated how keeping a diary affected both college and high school students. Those who were prone to severe test anxiety showed a dramatic score increase when they wrote a diary entry directly before the exam. Just writing wasn't enough, though. They had to specifically address their worries about the test. It appears this freed up their brains to focus on the test immediately afterwards, rather than the consequences. With the high school kids, diary-writing produced an average grade increase of B- to a B+, which is enough to make any kid freaking out about the SATs more than a little happy.

Research published in Science