9 Tips to Discovering The Benefits of Journaling
Consider starting a journal if you're looking for a simple and effective way to improve your mental and emotional well-being. Regular journaling has been shown to help with stress reduction, increased mindfulness, and even better sleep. Plus, it's a great tool for self-reflection and creativity. Here are nine benefits of keeping a journal.
1. It Improves Your Mental Health
Journaling helps you track different emotions you may be experiencing. It helps you to process your feelings. It allows you to dive deep into your psyche to understand what is causing the different conflicts in your mind.
2. It Boosts Your Emotional Intelligence
Journaling opens you up to greater self-discovery so that you understand your reactions, strengths, and weaknesses. It will help you read your own emotions while boosting your empathy toward others.
3. It Helps You Achieve Your Goals
A goal is only worth the paper it is written on. Keeping a journal allows you to write down and track your goals. This act tells your subconscious that your goals are important and makes them much more attainable.
4. It Increases Your Memory and Retention
When you write something down, your mind composes ideas into words, and this helps cement them into your mind. Regularly keeping a journal will strengthen your ability to retain and remember more information.
5. It Strengthens Your Self-Discipline
When you commit to keeping a daily journal, you are exhibiting self-discipline. When you open that journal and write on a busy day or a day you don't feel like writing, you are proving to yourself that you can be and stay disciplined.
6. It Will Improve Your Communication Skills
Writing is a major part of your communication arsenal. Regularly keeping a journal will boost your writing skills. Journaling strengthens your ability to pull your thoughts together and express them coherently to others.
7. It Can Spark Your Creativity
Stream of conscious writing unlocks your mind's creative juices. It helps you overcome writer's block and develop ideas and thoughts. You may even discover the answer to a problem you have been trying to solve!
8. It Can Enhance Your Critical Thinking Skills
Writing down your thoughts can help you assess any situation you are dealing with. Journaling enables you to work out problems that may be cluttered in your mind. It also gives your mind ways to evaluate new issues that arise in the future.
9. It Helps Alleviate Stress
Journaling can help you cope and reduce the impact of a stressful event. It enables you to process emotions and discover ways to handle the stress of certain situations. It may even help you avoid burnout and decrease your anxiety.
ACTION STEPS
- Purchase a notebook that fits your needs. It can be a spiral-bound notebook or a hardcover version.
- Schedule time in your calendar for journaling. Start with 10 or 15 minutes and show up every day.
- Look up journaling prompts on the Internet and make a list. This can help you write when you don't know what to put down on paper.
READING LIST
1. Let That Sh*t Go: A Journal for Leaving Your Bullsh*t Behind
https://amzn.to/48gthy3
2. Creative Journaling
https://amzn.to/4dVNiv0
3. The Mindfulness Journal
https://amzn.to/40asE7q
4. The Great Book of Journaling
https://amzn.to/48ltCQk
5. 52-Week Mental Health Journal
https://amzn.to/3NxAGj2