The benefits of journaling: How to journal for self-improvement
Are you a worrier? Are you not yet living the life you’d hoped? Find out why journaling can help your mental health and self-improvement efforts.
Have you ever tried journaling? It’s currently experiencing a boost in popularity – and with good reason. Journaling is a great way of clearing your mind and working through any negative thoughts and worries.
Journaling is not meditation, but it shares many common health benefits. It can have a positive impact on your mental and physical health, as well as your self-improvement efforts.
And the best part about journaling? It’s easy to do and doesn’t cost you anything! You can also do it anywhere and any place. All you need is a notebook or laptop and you can get started.
It doesn’t need to be a complicated process, either. There are no hard and fast rules ahoy journaling. You can just start writing down whatever comes into your mind at that moment if you wish. (If you find it hard to get started and need some inspiration for your journaling, take a look at WriteMyPaper4me.org.)
To help motivate you to get started, here are some of the benefits you can see when you start journaling regularly.
Journaling is a great way to combat stress and improve your immune system
The primary goal of journaling is to declutter your mind from negative thoughts, stress, and anxiety. If you are afraid of something or if you often worry about the same things, write about it in your journal and then reflect upon it.
According to a study conducted by a Psychological Science Journal in 2011, journaling is a powerful tool for clearing your mind of negative thoughts and combating stress.
Our mental and physical health are closely aligned. So by journaling to improve your mental health, you can’t help but have a positive impact on you physical wellbeing.
No wonder then that journaling is scientifically proven to have a positive good impact on your immune system. So if you’d like to strengthen your immune system stronger, give journaling a try. It can even apparently help to improve your liver functionality and lower your blood pressure.
Journaling can help you make progress in your life
Once you get all your negative thoughts and worries down onto paper, you can reflect on each one and think about how you can make changes or improvements.
You can start to notice habits – both in action and in thinking and feeling – that are holding you back or limiting you. And plan for ways to you can replace these unwanted habits with more preferred thoughts, feelings and action; ones that are more in alignment of the person you want to be.
You can also journal about the person you want to be, and the life you want to live, so you can consciously make decisions and take actions that are more likely to realise them. This also helps to give your subconscious a template to work towards, so you unconsciously make the right choices too.
Journaling helps your brain deal with emotions properly
Have you ever thought that journaling can improve your self-confidence and deal with emotions more effectively?
Whether it’s the loss of a job, a break up with a partner, or anything else that is a source of stress and negative emotions, you can work through your feelings by journaling about it. Journaling will help your brain to deal with those emotions, much like a talking therapy, and come to terms with a situation better.
Putting your feelings down into paper regularly can also help you to spot patterns in thinking or behaviours – your own or those of others. And when you see patterns that might be unhelpful or unwanted you can take steps to change. Or remove yourself from situations that you know cause you stress or unhappiness.
Journaling gives you invaluable insights into situations and your inner processing of them, so you can change what you need to (if you want to) or come to an important acceptance or reframe of those things in your life you cannot change, which are currently causing you unhappiness or you feel stuck with.
Journaling can help you improve your writing skills
As an extra bonus, writing a journal every day can be good for honing your writing skills. The more you write, the better you become at conveying your thoughts in writing.
Finally, to help motivate you to start journaling further, it’s worth knowing that all the above-mentioned benefits are long-term. So join a growing club of journalists and reap the enormous benefits. But be aware: this habit is life-changing!
