Category: Therapeutic Tools

I am setting up a journal for a first time. Where do I start?

Despite the fact journaling often being connected to children years while we are in school, it gain a lot of popularity over the past couple of decades in between adults. In fact ones of the most successful people were using journaling and kept few of them throughput the life. The most memorable names would be Steve Jobs from modern era or Leonardo Da Vinci from the past.

Journaling started though much earlier than that and its first traces are as early as 554AD in China. Very first diaries of retrospective nature were written by ladies of the royal Japanese court in the 10^th century.

Journaling is a widely used therapeutic method in therapy, where clients are advised to journal as a self-reflective journey, as a healing tool for spiralling mind as a gainer of clarity and more.

What are the benefits of Journaling?

Human mind is a very complex to navigate and mostly we are unaware of its work. Our brain picks up on many cues throughout the day, mostly unconsciously to our benefit and help us function in everyday life throughout often automatic behaviours.

Maybe you noticed that a lot of ideas would come to you in the shower, or that your mind spirals in the mornings or you find yourself unable to sleep due to overactive mind.

Journaling can be of help here.

When we journal we are creating space in our minds. We are putting thoughts elsewhere and we don’t keep carrying them around. Due to multiple cues in a day and roles we need to fulfil our mind very easily fills up and keeping us away from present moment. When we leave the present or are mostly elsewhere in our minds we are as well slowly becoming less connected to our emotions, our bodies and often this might lead to unhappiness, depression and anxiety. It is a form of necessary self-protection specially if we experienced difficult experiences throughout the life or chronic stress. None of these are uncommon in nowadays disconnected society and maybe that is one of the reasons why journaling became popular over the past decades.

Saying above one of the main benefits of journaling would be SPACE and MENTAL CLARITY.

What are mental health benefits?

When we journal we are not only creating space in our minds, but we are as well processing events, experiences and ultimately our emotions. Journal can be often self-soothing tool or a tool how to access our emotions and become more aware. By putting thoughts down we become less judgmental or more aware of inner critique and so ultimately we experience less negative emotions.

According to PositivePsychology.com benefits of journalling are:

• Reducing anxiety
• Breaking away from a nonstop cycle of obsessive thinking and brooding
• Improving the awareness and perception of events
• Regulating emotions
• Encouraging awareness
• Boosting physical health

Writing about stressful and traumatic events can significantly benefit our physical and emotional health.

In fact, studies show that time spent journaling about our deepest thoughts and feelings can even reduce the number of sick days we take off work (Sohal, Singh, Dhillon & Gill, 2022).

Research suggests that journaling can help us accept rather than judge our mental experiences, resulting in fewer negative emotions in response to stressors (Ford, Lam, John, & Mauss, 2018; Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005).

How do you start?

If you’ve never journaled before it can feel quite intimidating sitting in front of a blank page.

There are various ways to approach this:

1. You can google some journaling prompts for every day journaling or you can find prompts and focus on some theme in your life – relationships, friendships, self-esteem, divorce, loss etc.
2. Morning pages – basically start writing whatever comes to mind in the mornings and until you didn’t fill 2-3 pages you won’t stop. No judgment over content, grammar, how pretty it looks. You are just taking thoughts as messy they are down on the paper.
3. Start with highlight of a day every day – just one sentence or one sentence what you are grateful for
4. Follow one of the methods of people who journaled before you – there is lot of ideas on youtube by ordinary people as you, there are journaling ideas from successful people like Leonardo Da Vinci and others which could serve as an inspiration to find out what kind of journaling suits best for you.

These are possible first steps how to approach journaling. As more you write as more you start connecting dots and clarity will emerge together with possible emotions. Journaling is in this sense amazing tool, because journal won’t judge you for your thoughts and emotions, you can pour them out as they come, name them, connect them to people, places, events and through this process slowly let go.

Setting up a journal for a first time and every time after that can be part of a self-care ritual. You buy a notepad which speaks to you, you research how to incorporate journaling to your life and you make it part of morning or evening routine or you keep journal with you at all times. If you are creative and visual person you might want to incorporate drawings, if you are analytical you might want to be able measure either your habits, sleep patterns etc.

I will end here for today, but throughout this month theme of JOURNALING will possibly appear in few more articles in relation to how to journal.