Mental Health and Journaling
By Riri Butler
Introduction:
When you look up ways to destress or support your mental health, journaling will come up again and again without fail. However, beginning your journaling journey seems intimidating at first. How are you supposed to begin? What are you supposed to write about? Is your journal supposed to be all pretty with washi tape and glitter pens? It is much simpler than you believe, and once you get started, the undeniable benefits for your mental health are revealed.
Benefits of Journaling:
Journaling allows you to:
Manage anxiety
Cope with depression
Destress
Control symptoms
Improve mood
These all can be done when you journal in order to confront trauma, emotions, fears, problems, symptoms, and more. On top of this, you can use your journal to self-improve and see the world differently, possibly by choosing to format your thoughts in a positive tone or writing down the highlights of your day.
How To Journal:
There are two main types of journaling. The first is gratitude journaling, when you write all the things in your life that you are grateful for in the moment. This forces you to think optimistically and see the world through rose-tinted glasses. This can spiral into a daily habit, until you naturally start to find joy in the little things that you normally would not notice.
The second type is expressive journaling, which means writing down your deepest feelings and thoughts. This will allow you to express your negative emotions, get things that are troubling you off your chest, and free up your mind of pessimism.
However, you never have to stick to these strict rules to consider your writing as journaling. You can doodle, look up random prompts, write rants, create poetry, or anything else. Your journal is your journal, nobody will read it and all that matters is that it makes you happy.
How To Journal MORE:
Allocate a few minutes daily to journaling: a few minutes in the morning and/or a few minutes before bed set aside specifically to journal will add up. This way you can do daily entries, having time to write about your thoughts and worries about each day.
Make it easier: do not make it a huge ritual, where you sit down with an entire pencil case full of flashy stickers and markers. Take a plain notebook and a pencil, sit down where you are, then just start writing.
Embrace the mess: stop worrying about neat handwriting or fancy decorations. Just write down your thoughts in any form or way you feel is right, whether it is in paragraphs or bullet points. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just efficient.
Prompts: find prompts to make starting easier. You can look up fun ones on Google, Pinterest, TikTok, or other social media platforms. Or, you may begin with easier ones like “Today, I felt…” or “Tomorrow, I am looking forward to…”.
Conclusion:
Journaling is a highly respected method of expressing your thoughts and supporting your mental health. It is an affordable and accessible version of therapy, only needing a piece of paper and a pencil. It helps you process your emotions and overcome daily issues, reducing stress and improving overall mental health. Starting simple, with a basic prompt and giving yourself a few minutes to write, can begin a long journey into self-improvement and healing.
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