The Healing Power of Journaling

Hello and welcome back to week #9 of Keystone’s weekly wellness blog!

In this week’s post, I wanted to share some knowledge surrounding the topic of journaling. Reading that, I may have been met with an eye roll or a hesitant nod… We may associate journaling with being a young kid, writing about our crushes and hiding our diaries under our beds. As we’ve gotten older, the same benefits apply! Journaling has been at the centre for many self-care, mental health and general advice blogs for a reason. I have mentioned the topic before in previous blogs, but today I wanted to dive deeper and go over the many (some unexpected) benefits of journaling as well as some pointers and tips to get started and try it yourself.

Let’s get into it…

What’s the history?

Journaling for mental health reasons has a long and rich history. Ancient figures like former Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and stoic philosopher Seneca used personal writings to reflect on emotions and life experiences. People have been writing in diaries and journals for centuries! More recently, journaling has shifted to a more personal and reflective focus, has been heavily researched for its wide range of health benefits and has reached a vastly large audience of people. Today, journaling has been used as a therapeutic method by many mental health and wellness professionals around the world.

The benefits behind it…

What you may be most familiar with is the cognitive and emotional benefits to journaling:

Stress Reduction

Journaling provides us a safe space to unload thoughts, feelings and reflections, helping to reduce overall stress levels and helping to better manage stress in general. The act of putting pen (pencil, marker or crayon, doesn’t matter) to paper allows us to externalize our thoughts and gain a better understanding of them and where they came from.

Emotional Release

Writing about challenging experiences can act as an emotional release, allowing us to better process and make sense of difficult events or emotions. Writing out feelings of grief, difficulty, or trauma prevents those feelings and thoughts from taking too much space in our heads.

Improved Mood

Regularly writing down expressions of gratitude, positive experiences and accomplishments or simply prioritizing your fears and concerns can give us a little bit of sunshine in our cloudy thoughts. This is a good opportunity to practice that positive self-talk we went over not too long ago…

Self-Awareness

The self-reflective nature of journaling helps us to become more aware of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Keeping track of our behaviour or feelings during triggering situations can especially help us to hold ourselves accountable and promote personal growth.

Memory Improvement

Physically writing down events or feelings helps keep our brains in tip-top shape! By writing down events or simply just our thoughts, it boosts memory and comprehension skills.

Now what if I told you that new breakthroughs in research have revealed that journaling has physical benefits as well?

Let me tell you about it!

Immune System Boost

Research suggests that expressive writing like journaling can strengthen our immune systems. Because journaling has such a big impact on reducing stress, that in turn gives our bodies a break from the stress, which leads to a quicker and more effective immune response!

Better Sleep

Journaling before we go to sleep can help to clear the mind and improve our quality of sleep. By jotting down concerns or achievements, it can help to deal with those stubborn and racing thoughts we face when trying to get a good night’s rest.

Managing Pain

For anyone dealing with chronic pain or illness(es), journaling is a really effective tool for tracking symptoms, identifying patterns and making potential connections between our physical symptoms and emotional well-being.

What are the tips and tricks to getting started and stay committed?

To make something a habit it takes an average of doing it for 66 days for it to stick. Like any habit we try to create for ourselves, it will take some trial and error to see what works best for you as well as some commitment on your end to make sure you get all the benefits you need!

Start with having a set time of day that you write in your journal. Whether it’s in the morning before you get out of bed (if you can manage that) or before going to sleep, sticking to a set time frame makes it easier for you to create a habit of it.

Find a medium of journaling that feels right for you. Even though we talked mostly about a written journal, some people don’t feel it’s the right method of getting thoughts out. Digital journaling apps, scrapbooking, audio/visual and art journaling are all different methods you can give a try. Same goes with what you write about — some people prefer journaling in bullet points, focusing on gratitude, goal setting or simply writing a stream of your thoughts! There are so many options to best suit each individual.

Finally, write like NO ONE is watching!!! Find a special place for your journal where only you can access it. The more open and honest we are in our expressions of concerns and emotions, the more realizations and connections we can make from it. Even though there may be different styles and methods to journaling, there are no rules if you don’t want there to be. Journaling is a journey that goes only according to how you want it to!

It may help people who aren’t sure what to write to either use a journaling template or premade prompts.

To help you out of a writer’s block, here are some ideas to get you started:

• Five years from now, I will be…
• Write about a day you’d like to forget.
• Is there anything you need to forgive yourself for? If yes, write yourself a letter.
• ​​Is there someone you need to forgive? If yes, write them a letter explaining how you feel.
• Describe yourself in five positive words.
• What are 10 things you’re actively enjoying about life right now?
• Write about the most fun you had recently. What were you doing and who were you with?
• What are 10 questions you wish you had the answers to right now?
• What is standing in your way of reaching your goals?
• What’s something you wish others knew about you?
• What does friendship mean to you?
• What did I learn today — about myself, others, or the world around me?
• What are three fears holding you back? What’s one small action you can take to challenge each fear?
• List small achievements or tasks you accomplished today.
• If your current emotions were a type of weather, what would they be? Cloudy, stormy, sunny?

The world of journaling is big and the possibilities are endless! Whether it’s through written work, using a video diary or whatever it may be, each method of journaling provides a unique and personalized approach to self-discovery and improved well-being. I challenge whoever is reading this to go home tonight, get set up in a comfortable space and see what you can do with one of the prompts provided — you may be surprised at how much you can come up with and how you can learn something new about yourself.

However you do it, I wish you the best of luck on your journaling journey!