Research shows that journaling daily can have a positive impact on your overall resilience, mental health, and general state of mind. A great outlet for expressing emotions about setbacks and achievements alike, journaling is a fantastic way to combat burnout, symptoms of depression, and more. For a few ways that journaling can improve your mental health, read on.
Engaging in Healthy Habits
One of the best things about keeping up with an everyday resilience journal is that journaling daily will help you to build healthy habits around an emotional release. It can be easy to let stress and sadness build up without any release. Maybe you’re a caregiver who puts other people’s needs first. Perhaps you’re grieving someone lost to COVID-19. Maybe you struggle with communicating with people at work or in your family. In making a habit of writing those feelings in your journal, you’ll be serving as a witness to your own story. By getting those feelings out, you’ll also give yourself the power to see your feelings on paper and write a real-life ending that might work better for you.
Some people use journals for more than feelings. Creative people are known to draw or paint in art journals; also a great release. For others, journals are a great place to set goals and make promises to yourself. They can help keep you accountable to those goals, as well. All of this leads to a better quality of life and self-empowerment.
Journals as Outlets
If you’re someone who’d consider using a journal mental health healing and would like to use a journal as an emotional outlet, you’re already halfway there. However, some people struggle with knowing where to start when it comes to forming the healthy habit of regular journaling. Many experienced therapists recommend being patient with yourself as you build this new habit. Instead of jumping into the pages with emotions and feelings, many recommend starting with something more simple.
Maybe you enjoy writing poems. Perhaps you love to travel. Consider your hobbies and interests and start with writing about them. As you begin a stream of consciousness writing session, you’ll inevitably find that you’re able to swing around to your feelings. That’s where the therapy and mental healing can begin. It’s also important to remember that, even before then, writing about other things is a nice way to remind yourself of the people, activities, hobbies, and places you enjoy. A simple writing session about the mountains could lead to planning a stress-free vacation next year. When you write, do it with an open mind.
Narrative Therapy and Journaling
Any licensed narrative therapist will tell you that self-care is important. These highly specialized therapists even assign journal writing as an intervention for nearly every mental health issue. Tasked with helping you to see that you’re the author of your own life, they can give you tools to unravel psychological distress and begin the healing process with journals. This postmodern therapeutic modality is one that is proving to help people of all ages and populations, especially those who love stories and story-telling. As it is born on the premise that everyone can define their own happy ending, using journals to get there is common with proven results. The best part about it is that you don’t need a therapist to begin writing down your thoughts. By starting now, you can even begin to improve your overall mood.
In the end, whether you journal because you lack social support, hope to build resilience, are struggling with burnout, or want to improve your mental health, picking up this healthy habit is a fantastic way to help yourself be more content with your emotions and everyday life. If you struggle with mental health, consider talking to a narrative therapist about ways you could use journaling to improve your situation and give you peace of mind.
