When you were a teenager, you might have kept a diary hidden under your mattress. It was a place to confess your struggles and fears without judgment or punishment. It likely felt good to get all of those thoughts and feelings out of your head and down on paper.
The world seemed clearer. You may have stopped using a diary once you reached adulthood. But the concept and its benefits still apply. It's simply writing down your thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly. And if you struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety, keeping a journal can be a great idea.
It can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health. One of the ways to deal with any overwhelming emotion is to find a healthy way to express yourself.
This makes a journal a helpful tool in managing your mental health. Journaling can help you:. Tracking any symptoms day-to-day so that you can recognize triggers and learn ways to better control them. Providing an opportunity for positive self-talk and identifying negative thoughts and behaviors. Keep in mind that journaling is just one aspect of a healthy lifestyle for better managing stress, anxiety, and mental health conditions.
During the month, the group who wrote about feelings and thoughts experienced more growth from the trauma: better relationships with others and a greater sense of strength, appreciation for life, and new possibilities for the future.
They seemed to be more aware of the silver linings of the experience, while the group who focused on emotions expressed more negative emotions over time and even got sick more often that month. The point here is that the most effective journaling moves from emotions to thoughts over time. But eventually, we do start to make observations, notice patterns, or set goals for the future. Launching September 1, The Science of Happiness is a self-paced, online course featuring research and practices on empathy, mindfulness, self-compassion, and more.
Learn science-based principles and practices for strong relationships and a meaningful life. Register here. In addition to writing, you might also consider adding drawings to your journal. In a study , people either journaled, made drawings, or journaled and drew about a negative experience from the past that still upset them, like relationship troubles or loss.
According to surveys before and after, the group who wrote and drew saw the biggest improvements in their mood after three weekly, minute sessions. The researchers speculate it may have dredged up difficult feelings without offering a way to process them.
If writing is challenging, speaking your feelings aloud may work just as well. In that mono study, there was another group of students who recorded themselves talking about their stress. This group ended up showing the strongest immune responses to the dormant virus in their bodies. They also seemed to be doing the best psychologically, gaining insight and a positive perspective on their stress, improving in self-esteem, and engaging in healthier coping strategies.
The researchers suspect that talking—even to a voice recorder—may feel similar to sharing our feelings with a loved one. One study , for example, found that people who talked to a therapist for four short daily sessions showed more positive emotion and less negative emotion.
They gained understanding and perspective, and they made healthy behavior changes similar to people who journaled. Therapy also seemed to be less unpleasant than writing. In fact, when Pennebaker originally envisioned journaling as a mental health exercise, he was inspired by the benefits of therapy—but mindful that not everyone has the means or the inclination to talk to a professional about their problems. Other times, our secrets feel too vulnerable to speak out loud.
Confiding on paper can be a valuable alternative and a way to express ourselves with absolute freedom. Journaling lets us process secrets before we reveal them to others. For Quatrini, who researches and teaches about China, the stress of the pandemic has an extra layer: With the disruption to U.
The more specific the list the faster the study participants fell asleep. And why not? A to-do list helps your mind tie all those loose ends that unravel during sleepless nights. Writing about positive events before bedtime also helps, as it redirects your mind from dark thoughts that keep you up.
In another study, college students slept better when they journaled about the bright side of life. Just writing something down improves your ability to remember it. Journaling is also a great way to remember specific moments in time and phases of your life. The physical act of writing brings information centerstage and lets your brain know it should pay close attention. A journal helps you commit your goals into writing. And writing down your goals makes you more likely to achieve them.
Expressive writing also helps you better identify what you want. A journal helps you affirm that your goals are possible. It helps you create a practical plan to achieve goals and break up big tasks into smaller chunks.
A journal helps you review past failures and successes — and better plan for the future. The thought of writing about a wasted day just might motivate you to spend that day more wisely. It also puts things in perspective and makes you realize that no matter how bad things seem, there are solutions and things to be grateful for now. It also helps you identify your triggers and learn how to handle them. Writing about your emotions in an abstract, impersonal perspective is also calming and makes you happier , a study found.
Writing about your feelings helps the brain overcome upsets and leaves you happier, the study noted. Writing about your emotions helps you become self-aware.
It takes a load off and improves your mood. Journaling helps you identify patterns and specific thoughts that throw you into depression. Keeping a journal is so effective that mental health experts recommend journaling to manage depression symptoms — and this journaling makes therapy work better too. Problems begin to look more manageable when you get them down on paper.
Journaling helps in more extreme cases, too. In another study, journaling was shown to help people make sense of trauma. Students who wrote about their traumatic experiences for six weeks reported a more positive mood than a group who wrote about their everyday experiences.
Expressive writing helps people better handle symptoms of PTSD, lowers body tension and lessens feelings of anxiety and anger. Journaling lets you explore uncharted thoughts and emotions. Writing about your recurrent thoughts gets them out of the way and clears your mind to make room for other ideas.
Writing on paper also lets you examine your ideas from various perspectives. Journaling helps you keep track of your ideas, inspirations, quotes and sketches. They may be just scribbles when they stand alone, but they add up to powerful insights over time. A journal is a safe space for honesty that will free you from thinking about what you should be writing.
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