When writing about traumatic events or stressful situations, you can drastically improve your overall mental and emotional wellbeing. Studies have proven that investing time in journaling your deepest feelings and thoughts can reduce the number of days that you need to take off work also.
This is because journaling helps us towards a path of acceptance as opposed to judging our mental health, which results in a reduction in negative feelings in response to triggers or stressful situations. The article also outlines the copious benefits of journaling and introduces techniques and guidance that can help to support you during your journaling journey! If you run out of room in your journal, you can always refill it by purchasing this high-quality journal paper refill.
Why Is Journaling So Good for You?
Journaling is commonly used during therapy to aid the treatment of mental illness. There are two forms of journaling that are often used in psychotherapy like CBT. These consist of the following:
Expressive Writing
This is usually performed over the course of four sessions in order to access the client’s deepest thoughts and feelings. This form of writing focuses on the emotional experience to reconnect the client with their emotional self.
Gratitude Journaling
This form of journaling helps clients to focus on the positive aspects of life by capturing interactions, events, and situations for which they are grateful.
Of course, you do not have to be in therapy to practice these techniques as keeping a record of your personal feelings and thoughts is always beneficial. Journaling helps to support your overall mental health in the following ways:
- Breaks cycles of obsessive thoughts and feelings
- Improves self-awareness
- Provides differing perceptions of events
- Helps to regulate your emotions
- Encourages you to be more physically active
- Improves overall physical health
- Reduces anxiety levels.
Even though the positive impact of journaling can be felt irrespective of whether you perform this activity on a daily basis or not, it is recommended that you do journal on a daily basis. This is because it helps you to create discipline in your life and keep a more consistent awareness of your innermost thought processes.
Research and Studies into Journaling
Studies have shown that capturing feelings and thoughts on paper helps to reveal the range of emotional trauma that someone has experienced. While this experience can be incredibly upsetting, clients have reported that it is beneficial in the long-term, as it helps them to accept the trauma that they have experienced.
There has been a wide range of emotional, cognitive, and physical benefits experienced via the process of expressive writing. These include the following:
- Improved liver function
- Less time in hospital
- Better moods
- Improved lung function
- Improved moods
- Enhances psychological health
- Fewer depressive symptoms
- Reduced stress-related visits to clinicians
- Less time out of work
Research into gratitude journaling has suggested that study participants who regularly focused their attention on aspects of their life that they are grateful for, drastically enhanced their positivity. However, some people can find this process to be monotonous. Therefore, it may be beneficial to practice gratitude journaling on specific days of the week.
The Psychology of Journaling
Research has continuously linked acceptance of mental experiences with enhanced psychological health. Studies have suggested that accepting our feelings enhances our ability to experience positively charged therapeutic outcomes, including reduced anxiety levels and improved moods.
Journaling promotes acceptance. The mindful acceptance that it provides is a valuable means of freeing ourselves from unhelpful and unhealthy cycles. While the specific mechanisms that are involved in the journaling process are not necessarily clear, it is believed that the following psychological processes could be involved:
- Emotional release of subconscious conflicts through the venting of negative emotions
- Improved cognitive processing
- More coherent narratives related to trauma
- Repeated exposure therapy
- Increased exposure to stress-inducing events can lead to a reduction in harmful feelings and flashbacks.
- Emotional inhibition is relieved.
- Confrontation of negative emotions supports cognitive integration and enhanced understanding of why events may have taken place.
Conclusion
To conclude, journaling promotes acceptance which inherently enhances your overall mental health and wellbeing. This is because acceptance of negative thoughts, feelings, events, and experiences is the cornerstone to recovery.
The moment that we spend time journaling our thoughts and making sense of them, we begin to heal. This is why journaling is a technique that is used in numerous psychological practices in order to reconnect the client with their innermost self.
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