The importance of journaling has been supported more and more as it’s said to train your mind to release those pent up thoughts that cause stress and anxiety.

Journaling can be used to help connect your thoughts together by putting them out into the world, whether on paper, your notes on your phone or typing them on your computer. 

When you think of journaling, the image of a young teenage girl writing about her most recent crush might come to mind. However, so many others have discovered the benefits of consistently journaling. 

 

Importance of Journaling:

 

It’s a great outlet for your emotions

Including journaling in your daily routine can help you to prevent a build up of emotion and to let things off your chest every day. 

If you’re often experiencing rushes of emotions that feel overwhelming, journaling can help to release them by letting them out and helping your brain to make sense of them. 

Often, in our heads, our thoughts get confused and interlaced with each other so it can be hard to make sense of them. By physically writing them out, we’re essentially creating a story or a timeline that your brain begins to understand as you write. 

 

You can identify your problems

Rather than having the overpowering thought of: “I’ve not had a productive day today,” journaling can help you to elaborate and change that thought into focusing on your feelings and so you may write something like, “I don’t feel like I’ve been productive today because I haven’t x, y, z.”

Over time, the things you write in your journal can help you to identify the problems that consistently arise. These can be as simple as discovering the reasons you aren’t sleeping well, to more deep rooted issues that may be causing problems for your mental health.

 

You create your own solutions

Digging deeper into those emotions may help you to come up with your own solutions as you write. This is because you’re understanding your thoughts instead of becoming consumed by them and so may think more practically about what is causing the problems and how to solve them. 

“I don’t feel like I’ve been productive today because of x. Now that I know that I can work to change…” 

It may sound so simple and maybe a little patronising, but it works!

Of course, for the more serious problems that arise, journaling is not the answer. It might help you in some way, but professional advice should always be relied upon and sought after if it feels necessary.

 

It inspires you to do more through the day

Some people like to journal because they like to keep track of their own behaviour and what they’ve been doing, rather than using it to make sense of their thoughts.

By tracking your movements and activities, you can also see what you’re doing too much of or what you’d like to do more. This can help you to build on your perfect days and create a great routine for yourself. 

Journaling can also help to inspire you to be more productive throughout the day as you may start to look forward to writing it all down in the evenings and showing yourself how much you’ve accomplished. 

 

It’s a great coping mechanism

Expressing everything that has bothered you through the day can be a great outlet and a very good coping mechanism.

If you struggle to speak to people about your feelings then you’ll probably find it a lot easier to write down all of your feelings instead of actually speaking to someone and telling them what has been bothering you. 

This means that you’re more likely to be more honest to yourself about your feelings too as you know that everything you’re writing down is in a safe place, instead of building up inside your mind.

If you like to focus on all the good things that have happened then spending a few minutes a day to sit down and remind yourself of the greatness in your life can distract you and take your minds off any struggles you’re currently feeling. 

 

You have time to reflect

Whether you’re thinking about the good or bad events in your life, you’re spending some time reflecting on the things that have happened. It can help you to truly understand the things you’ve been through and why they’ve happened. 

The importance of journaling can also include the psychological benefits. You may feel more grateful for the small things in your life, you might realise you need to let go of a few things that have been unnecessarily troubling you or to forgive ourselves for any wrong doings.

 

Journaling allows us to hold onto our identities

Especially after a traumatic event, sometimes we can lose a sense of ourselves and who we are. Writing about your own experiences and feelings can help us to identify who we are, what we’ve been through and how well we’re doing coming out of the other side.

A lot of people also struggle to understand who they want to be and what they want to accomplish in life. Journaling can help us to identify the things we love to do and why, which can inspire us to think more about who we are and what we can do to make ourselves happy. It can put us on the right course to finding more happiness and keeping the positives in your life. 

 

It physically manages your intrusive thoughts

I think we can all agree that at some point in our lives we’ve had a little voice pop up in the back of your mind, telling you you can’t do something, you’re not good enough or something similar. Those thoughts can often be overwhelming and can stop us from doing a lot of things throughout our lives. 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realise how many things I hadn’t done because I was too scared to face my fears and had let that little voice take over. 

Journaling can help to manage those intrusive thoughts by literally discussing them with yourself – how they made you feel, what you did in response to them, what you’re going to do next time a similar thought pops into your mind. Again, you’re finding your own solutions to your problems which can be an amazing confidence boost for you and the progress you make for your mental health.

These are just a few notes I’ve made and noticed from journaling myself. There are so many more reasons out there that identify the importance of journaling such as boosting your creativity, helping you come to terms with trauma, keeping yourself in a consistent routine and generally keeping track of what you’re doing, what you’re eating and how much exercise you’re doing each day. 

So why not give it a go? You’ll realise the importance of journaling and what benefits it can have for your mental health.