The Power of Journaling: Expelling the Inner Thoughts and Feelings
Do you ever find yourself reminiscing about all the things you could have done? Maybe you said something to a partner and immediately regretted it and now it’s bothering you. Or maybe something caused you to feel sad and frustrated and now you can’t stop thinking about the situation? Maybe those thoughts are keeping you awake and becoming a source of distress?
Your brain is a safe house for your thoughts and feelings, but sometimes there can be things that you don’t want. So how can you expel them in a healthy way? One way is to journal.
What Is Journaling?
Journaling does not mean keeping a diary nor does it mean to write a detailed entry about everything in your day. It is simply writing down things that you want to. It can be writing down the thoughts that are bothering you or writing how you have been feeling from a certain situation that happened to you. Journaling is a tool that helps you see what you are feeling and thinking.
There are many benefits to journaling. Not only have studies recorded a reduction of anxiety and a healthy emotional regulation system, it can also help break away from a cycle of obsessing thinking and brooding and help improve a person's awareness of their day-to-day emotions and thoughts (Sutton, 2018).
How To Start?
The first step is to figure out where you want to keep your writing material. You can use a notebook, a bullet journal, or even a planner and a writing medium such as a pen or marker. If you prefer typing, you can use the notes app, a google doc, even a word doc is completely okay.
Then you can choose how you want to journal. There are different types of journaling and some may feel more powerful than others.
Gratitude Journal: Sometimes it can be hard to see the good when things are hard. You may have so much going on that sometimes life feels like a cycle of working, eating, and sleeping. A gratitude journal allows you to write about what things you are grateful for. For example, on a busy and chaotic day, you bought your favorite drink (ex. Matcha latte, a smoothie). By focusing on things you are grateful for you are pausing in the chaos and focusing on the moment you were happy.
Daily Journal: Another type of journaling is to write out what you did in your day. How was the weather? How was your sleep? How did your overall day go? This allows you to put your day in a snapshot and lets you process your feelings and thoughts throughout the day. You can choose random questions as prompts or keep the same question for each time you journal.
Mood Journal: Maybe you’re struggling with finding happiness or staying happy. Sometimes when we are experiencing anxiety or depression, it is hard to see the moments when we do feel happy. A mood journal is for you to record your feelings throughout the day. You can ask yourself why you felt that way, and describe what thoughts were going through your mind.
These are just some types of ways you can journal. You can combine them all or use them separately. There is no right or wrong in journaling. You can simply pick a pen and start writing, and if you want to be creative, by all means use stickers, memes, different font styles, colorful pens/fonts, and even pictures you took.
If you are unsure how to start or need guidance, bring it into therapy! Your therapist can help you brainstorm ideas and help create a plan that best fits you. You can also bring your journal to a session and go through it. This can help you be more detailed with your therapist about what you felt and thought as the week passed.
Remember, there is no right or wrong way. The goal is to expel those inner thoughts and feelings. By expelling them we are helping them exit our brain and nervous system, making space for positive thoughts and emotions.
References
Positive Psychology - 5 Benefits of Journaling for Mental Health by Jeremy Sutton, Ph.D.
https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-of-journaling/
Psychology Today - The Power of Journaling : Can journaling help us cope during troubled times? By David B. Feldman, Ph.D.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/supersurvivors/202009/the-power-of-journaling