“Your Journal is like your best friend. You don’t have to pretend with it, you can be honest and write exactly how you feel.” – Bukola Ogunwale
Do you want to feel happier? Then start a journaling practice today!
Scientific evidence supports that journaling can help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. In addition, it can help you to deal with your emotions, develop insights, boost your focus, reflect on your feelings and behavior, and document important parts of your life story. By helping you to focus on the beauty, connections, fun, love, and creativity in life, it also boosts your happiness.
The act of writing accesses your rational and analytical left brain. While your left brain is busy, your right brain is free to feel and create. So, writing removes your mental blocks and allows you to employ your brainpower to better understand yourself, other people, and the world that surrounds you.
Here are 6 benefits of journaling:
Heals emotionally, psychologically, and physically
When you develop the habit to express your experiences in writing, you make each experience more manageable and can free yourself from feeling stuck. Studies have shown that the emotional release of journaling lowers stress and anxiety and helps you to sleep better.
Evokes mindfulness
Journaling evokes mindfulness as it brings you into the here and now. While actively engaging with your thoughts, you are brought into the present and any past frustrations and future worries diminish.
Helps you to manage your emotions and increase your self-awareness
Freely expressing your deepest thoughts and feelings about issues which made a big impact on you and your life in writing can help you to increase your self-awareness and process your emotions.
Increases your self-discipline
Setting time aside to journal each day, is an act of discipline that will become stronger with time and may spread to other wellness habits which require self-discipline.
Boosts your creativity
As I wrote earlier, writing helps to remove mental blocks and boosts your creativity; it can bring out thoughts and ideas you didn’t know you had in you.
Helps you to achieve your goals
When you write down your dreams and ambitions, you create a strong psychological blueprint which increases the chance of achieving them.
How to get started:
You don’t need to have any experience as a writer to journal. Simply follow these easy steps to start building your journaling habit.
Use pen and paper
Although there are plenty of journaling apps available, and you can choose to use any word processing software to type your journal, writing by hand slows you down and better stimulates and engages your brain. When you write by hand, you will enjoy a break from your screens and the distractions of notifications going off on your device.
Select a time and space
Schedule time for journaling each day, whether upon waking up in the morning or before going to sleep at night, and choose a comfortable, inspiring, and quiet space to write in.
Choose your topics
Choose the topics you want to write about, include your daily activities, relationships, home, work, personal finances, health, dreams, fears, goals, or anything else that affects you.
Create your own prompts and questions
Create and use your own journaling prompts and questions to help you get started. What is on my mind? What worked well? What could I have done instead? How are things different now? What would I say to a younger version of myself? What did I learn today? What challenges did I face? What am I grateful for? Take time to reflect on and answer each question as honestly as you can.
You can’t get journaling wrong – it’s a purely personal pursuit without any rules. Consistency is key; a daily journaling practice will help you to see things in new ways, deal with your deeper feelings, connect with your loved ones, and cherish your life.
Start today and discover how your journal is an accepting, nonjudgmental friend. Good luck on your journaling journey!
