My mind often feels a bit like a jumbled bag full of scrabble letters, and every so often I need to tip the contents out all over the table, have a look at what’s there, make some sense of it, and get rid of anything I don’t need. And that’s what is happening when I journal.
Journaling is the simple act of writing down your thoughts, feelings or experiences in a notebook. That’s it.
It’s like a feather duster for the mind – you know the feeling when you finally clear out and declutter a cupboard? You find all sorts of things you didn’t know you had, and then you get to choose what goes in the bin, what goes to the charity shop, and what goes back into the cupboard. Well journaling is like cleaning out the cupboard of your mind.
It can be truly transformative. It is an incredibly simple, but powerful way to download and process your thoughts and feelings. It’s totally free, & you can do it anywhere, anytime.
It can help with so many different things, but especially with anxiety; the simple act of writing a thought down in a notebook can make it a lot less scary, somehow. And then we have the opportunity to examine the thought from a different perspective and perhaps reframe or redirect unhelpful thoughts – generating a new story or narrative to play in our poor, anxious brains.
Journaling can help with sleep; studies have shown that writing a to-do list before bed, or writing down 3 things we’re grateful for in that moment has been shown to improve sleep quality and duration. Gratitude journaling finding the tiny positives or glimmers in our day) calms the nervous system (activates the parasympathetic nervous system), regulates cortisol levels in our brains, triggers the brain to release happy hormones, and strengthens our positivity bias, making it easier to identify positives every day. Which in turn makes us feel happier! There is also evidence to suggest that a specific method of intense journaling can really help us to process trauma, by allowing the brain to rewire (neuroplasticity) and redirect memories and spiralling thoughts. Personally I found writing incredibly powerful in helping me to process my breast cancer diagnosis – watch this space for a blog-post about how it helped me.
Studies have even demonstrated that journaling can strengthen our immunity (increased antibodies), shorten healing time after surgery, reduce inflammation, and it’s thought that it could even improve heart health. And finally, journaling helps with self-awareness, aligning our lives with our values, shifting our perspective, and can improve our relationships, and our sense of identity & purpose.
So in conclusion, journaling is free, portable and can have a myriad of positive effects on our mind and body, so let’s DO IT! For those of you who don't know where to start, watch this space, and I'll write another post about it soon...
If you want to read more about any of these benefits, here are some interesting articles: Journaling for anxiety - https://mental.jmir.org/2018/4/e11290/ https://cmja.arakmu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-57-1&sid=1&slc_lang=en- https://evidencebasedliving.human.cornell.edu/blog/reduce-stress-and-anxiety-levels-with-journaling/ https://www.reflection.app/blog/benefits-of-journaling
Journaling for sleep https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleep-newzzz/202106/how-journaling-can-help-you-sleep
Journaling for health Healing time:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399922002720?via%3Dihub Blood pressure: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25736389/ Journaling for trauma: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/a-science-supported-journaling-protocol-to-improve-mental-physical-health
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