Journaling is becoming an increasingly popular self care activity, not just with women but also with men and children too. The reason for this is because there are are numerous benefits of journaling which we will discuss below.
What is journaling
For those not already familiar with journaling it is when someone regularly writes down their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a dedicated place. This once was a notebook or journal but is now also online platforms like specific apps, notes or blogs. There are no set rules to journaling, some people write everyday whereas others only turn to their journal when they need to clear their head or have something they feel they need or want to write about. Some people will write for a specific amount of time and others will just do what feels good for them, meaning everyone’s journal will look different. For most people a journal will be a private space so it doesn’t need to look neat or even make sense to anyone else, it’s a space just for them and they can use short hand or even codes if they prefer. The main idea is that journaling benefits you in some way and therefore you use it in your self care.
The benefits of journaling
There are numerous benefits to journaling and below are just some of them, there will be some benefits that are very unique to the individual too.
Improve Mood and Well-Being
Using a journal to reflect on positive experiences and to list daily gratitude’s can improve mood and make you feel more positive. It is also a great way to help identify the good things that have happened which may be over shadowed by some negative events. This approach tends to leave the writer feeling happy.
Stress Reduction
Journaling is a powerful coping mechanism when it comes to dealing with stress. Writing down all the things that surround the stressful situation, include your true emotions and reactions that you may not feel you can say aloud or to someone else, is a healthy way to relieve your mind of these emotions, fears, and anxieties, which can help reduce the intensity of these feelings and therefore reduce the stress surrounding them.
Problem Solving
As well as helping to reduce the stress around a situation writing about it can also help you identify any solutions that you may not have been able to see before. If simply writing about the situation isn’t enough then you can also use your journal to brain storm ideas, create lists of possible solutions and then go through them clearly marking down the pros and cons of each idea. Having it all written down will make it easy to compare ideas too.
Goal Setting and Achievement
Journaling can also be specific to certain areas of your life. For example you my start to use a journal to map out your goals and then monitor the achievements along the way. This could be specific to weight loss and exercise increase, working towards a promotion, starting your own business. Whatever the goals are, having a place to log your journey will help keep you on track and make you more accountable for your actions. A journal for goals will also keep you focused and make you more likely to succeed which is a great benefit of journaling.
Enhanced Creativity
Engaging in creative writing or free-form journaling can boost creativity. Exploring ideas, writing poetry, or capturing fleeting thoughts in a journal can inspire new perspectives and creative ideas. They are a great place to write down all your ideas and inspirations that you can come back to when you are feeling less creative.
Memory
Another benefit of journaling is that it keeps a record of your life. You can go back to it and check what you did last year, check your progress or remind yourself of ideas that you recorded. If you suffer with your memory then journaling for this reason alone can be very beneficial.
If you are unsure where to start then try these 17 journaling prompts.
With all these benefits to journaling it is a sure fire way to help you on your path to becoming a healthy parent. Once your children are of school age and can read and write themselves why not encourage the kids to start a journal too, it will be a great tool to have when they go through the various transitions of life including puberty.