Why is journaling important for mental health?

There are many different ways in which Journaling can positively impact our mental health, some of which include: 

Processing events and emotions:

Private reflection helps us to come to terms with issues that we may be facing by processing events and their accompanying emotions, and develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and our difficulties or triggers. 

Supports a body and mind connection :

Journaling has been shown to improve physical health by reducing the amount of stress hormones in the body:

• Decreasing heart rate and blood pressure 
• Decreasing of asthmatic and arthritic symptoms
• Increasing immune system function
  
• Increasing digestive system functioning 
• Improving function of certain internal organs

Journaling can help you recognise the warning signs:

For example, by writing down how you felt before a panic attack came on, you'll be creating a list of 'what to look out for', from this, you can build a repertoire of  techniques and mental tools that will allow you to prevent future panic attacks form reaching their full potential.

You may also notice a pattern in your writing, it may be a sign that you are slipping in to a depressive episode when you begin to write very negatively, or can't bring yourself to write at all.

Helps us to recognise triggers:

It's difficult to remember what you had for dinner last night, never mind what you were doing before you had a panic attack last Tuesday. Try noting down the time in which you felt an influx of anxiety and what you were doing before hand, you may find that a pattern emerges before you, enabling you to figure out whether these episodes are related to the time of day or a specific trigger. Using a journal for this is beneficial, as trying to spot a pattern in a seas of sensory information based on memory alone will be extremely difficult.

This type of record can also be helpful if you are seeking help from a GP, therapist or another medical professional as they can help you with specific triggers, using techniques such as exposure therapy. 

Helps us to desensitise a traumatic event (expressive writing exposure therapy):

Exposure therapy does what it says on the tin. For example, someone who is afraid of heights may begin rock climbing, the first week they might familiarise themselves with the safety gear, the week after they may get themselves on the wall. They continue step-by-step to increase their confidence until they reach the top of the wall. The idea is that by exposing yourself to your fear in a safe environment you take away the power that it holds over you. 

By writing about a traumatic event, we are exposing ourselves to the details that elicit a big reaction in a safe setting, where the details of the recount are no longer a danger to us. This can reduce the perceived intensity of the event, allowing us to process what happened without such a stressful reaction. 

Promotes a healthy decision making process:

By opening a dialogue with ourselves on how we feel about a decision, we can fully understand our feelings towards each of the options.

When we keep all of this information in our minds it becomes overwhelming and it becomes difficult to tell where the negatives end and the positives start. By writing these thoughts down, you are creating a visual representation of the pros and cons, with a distinct separation between the two. Dumping the contents of your brain on to paper also helps to clear your mind for new thoughts or more in depth thinking.

When you offload on to other people, they are inclined to tell you their own opinions and thoughts on the decision. This can cloud your judgement and create confusion over what you want and what others think you need.

By writing your thoughts and feelings on a situation over the course of a few days, you will be more confident in your true feelings about a decision. Going back to those pros and cons lists, we can use our journals to assess whether the benefits outweigh the costs, allowing us to make a more informed decision, at our own pace.

Goals:

Reviewing our journals can tell us a lot about ourselves and how we have changed over a period of time. They can highlight behaviours and responses we display towards people and events that we may want to look at changing in order to grow and improve on a personal level. 

The next step will be to create individual goals. When we write our goals down it gives them meaning, and by breaking them down in to smaller more doable chunks these goals become more achievable. Once we have decided on our goals, we can use our journals to track them. Having a visual daily/weekly/monthly reminder of what our goals are and the progress we are making, can give us the motivation to see them through to the end.

Can help us to challenge negative or intrusive thoughts:

We all experience intrusive thoughts from time to time, although some experience these thoughts at a greater intensity than others. Journaling can be a really helpful tool to challenge these negative or intrusive thoughts. 

Ruminating (thinking about them in an endless cycle) on these thoughts go hand in hand with anxiety and depression and can lead to a shame spiral. A journal gives us the space to write down these thoughts and rationalise them. Meaning, we can explain to ourselves why these thoughts are negative and convert them in to positives. From there, we can improve our positive self talk which will improve our overall mental wellness on a day-to-day basis.