Journaling, What’s The Big Deal?

A lot of people will associate journaling or keeping a diary with teenagers or what you would see in corny American rom-com’s. However, there is a growing trend of using journaling to help with clearing the mind on a wellness journey. Certainly I was sceptical when I first started journaling, due to the afore mentioned stereotypes, however it has been so worthwhile.

Benefits of Journaling:

Allows you to clear your mind. By simply writing your feelings down it instantly feels like a weight lifted of your shoulders and chest, it may seem like small things that are getting documented but can alleviate pressure that you may be feeling.
Allows you to practise gratitude. A big part of my journaling is writing down things I’m grateful for each day, these could be really novel things or big things. I also, write down takeaway’s from each days, which is a great way to reflect on the day and potential lessons into follow days.
You are able to track progress. Over longer periods of time you will be track progress in how your feeling day in and day out. By jotting down how your feeling, you can also track goals as part of the journaling process. This can be a great to tack sub goals as part of a 60 or 90 day plans.

A great way to integrate journaling into your life is by doing as part of a morning or evening routine, this way it is a constant in your life, this is how I started. I find that there is nothing more therapeutic than journaling in the morning especially when it is really quiet so you are truly one with your thoughts.

So, is journaling all that it’s cracked up to be? Well I would say yes it is, journaling give you a platform to be truly honest with yourself about topics you may not want to talk about with others. It is also a great platform for tracking your progress, certainly I can look back at previous entries and can track trends and overall progress through a period of time. Sometimes however it can be used for taking out general frustrations, if your having a bad day you can take all your anger and frustration out with your journal, trust you will feel better after it.