Mental health affects people all around us. There are times that we can’t express our thoughts and emotions as others might invalidate what we feel. We look down on ourselves and feel anxious, stressed or depressed, isolate ourselves and stop speaking to our loved ones. This leads to people having mental issues, the leading cause of suicide.
With the right therapy, mental health issues are very much treatable. One way to help with our mental health is through writing a journal.
What Is Journaling?
Journaling is a writing experience that allows you to reflect on your day. You may use journaling for self-reflection and self-expression. It stands as a coping mechanism when dealing with hardships and stressful situations. You may explore your experiences to gain a greater comprehension of those events.
Journaling is often used as a therapeutic activity for those suffering from depression or anxiety, allowing them to send a message to their future self about overcoming circumstances. Journaling allows readers to obtain complete clarity in their current situation by externalizing troubles into the journal itself.
Benefits of Journaling for Mental Health
Whether for mental health or personal reasons, journaling can bring about many changes to your life. Benefits include self-understanding, accurate perception of the world around you, memory improvement, better communication skills, stress relief and improved mood.
Journaling for mental health helps improve communication with doctors and therapists and can help them understand how you feel.
Writing in your journal relieves mental stress anxiety levels. You could have a better understanding of your emotions whenever you are faced with a difficult situation. If you are going through an emotional situation, writing in your journal could help you break away from obsession and think clearly about moving forward.
How to Start Journaling?
Writing a journal is not as complicated as it might seem. Your journal is a tool that can help you process your thoughts, can give clarity to your emotions and could keep your behavior and thinking patterns in check.
Journaling at least once per week will make it easier to see your progress and provide insights about yourself. Some people like to keep their journal private, while others like to share their journal with one specific person or more- a friend, a counselor or the Internet. Journaling allows for self-exploration and self-expression, which is why it should be done in a private space where you feel comfortable writing about what you want and how you feel.
Why Journaling Works
Keeping a journal is one of the most insightful things we can do for ourselves, not only in terms of giving us a strong sense of well-being but also in helping us understand ourselves better. This is because it targets the two crucial areas: thoughts and feelings.
Writing is a way to disclose our emotions rather than bottling them up. Contained emotions are not mentally or physically healthy; they can cause tightness on your chest or even fainting because of extreme emotional stress.
The writing process helps us think and organize our thoughts and experiences in a sequence. This gives us the chance to reflect and think about our actions and have a better perspective on what we can do in the future to make ourselves better.
A Parting Reminder
Not everyone can easily express themselves in a way other people do, which is why journaling is an effective tool to get these thoughts out of our system.
We all have stories and experiences to tell, and writing them down in a journal allows us to look back and see that we have changed for the better.
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