Why You Should Start Journaling
Journaling’s feeling of well-being isn’t just psychosomatic. The practice has very real physical health benefits for the people who do it. There’s a long list of successful people who swear by the benefits of journaling. Journaling makes you feel better both mentally and physically in the days and weeks after writing down your thoughts. According to a study led by researcher, Dr. Joshua Smith told the American Psychological Association that participants saw benefits when they journaled about understand and learning from their emotions. Keeping a journal allows you to track patterns, trends, and improvement and growth over time. It’s essential for a healthy lifestyle and here’s why.
All the Right Reasons to Start Journaling
Spending merely 15 minutes a day writing and documenting allows you to tap into a new level of mindfulness. Writing allows you to stop reacting and start planning and prioritizing. It makes it easier to develop an objective outlook. Journaling also can improve your speaking skills. Writing is an organizational process – the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Eventually, your brain gets better at organizing ideas, whether you are writing them or saying them. It’s always important to have clarity of thought in any situation if you wish to contribute and succeed.
Expressive writing is therapeutic, writing down complex problems frees up space in your head. Keeping you grounded and focused, and preventing you from making the same self-defeating mistakes over and over again. You become a self-expert, allowing you to uncover what makes you happy, what drives you, and how to navigate your feelings and behavior most effectively. Journaling will help you realize forgiveness, resolve disagreements, and cultivate understanding and compassion for others. Additionally, you stay accountable to your goals and track improvement, improving your ability to stick to your long-term goals.
Health Benefits of Journaling
An overabundance of stress can be damaging to your physical, mental and emotional health. Journaling is a incredible stress management tool, a good-for-you habit that lessens impact of physical stressors on your health. Expressive writing can strengthen your immunity and decrease your risk of illness. Those who journal boast improved immune system functioning as well a lessoned symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. Journaling also helps keep memory sharp. Not only does it boost memory and comprehension, it also increases working memory capacity.
How To Get Started Journaling
The most important thing to remember is that there is no rules to journaling. Find what best works for you. Here are a few methods:
Freewriting – Don’t establish any rules, just be free and write whatever comes to mind. Being able to openly express your feelings and what is going on in your life right now is one of the greatest benefits of journaling.
Gratitude – A gratitude journal has a lot of great benefits, like making you happier and more compassionate. List out all the things you were grateful for today, or whatever comes to mind.
Positivity – A positivity journal is another form of journaling that is about cultivating optimism. You could list out three good things that happened today, from big things to small things. It can be anything that comes to mind that makes you happy.
Whatever you decide to do, the most important thing is to keep the habit up, so take some time to learn how to most effectively establish new habits and stick to them.
