Have you ever wanted to start your day happier, more focused, and more mindful? Think back to your younger days, when you would pour over your diary and relive the best moments of your youth! Much like writing in a diary, journaling allows you to explore the events of each day or week through writing and sketching. Keeping track of the good while clearing your mind of the bad can generally help you feel more positive. An elegant yet simple daily routine, journaling is scientifically proven to reduce anxiety and improve your mood.
Read on for SEVEN benefits of journaling and a roundup of my favorite tools to get started!
Xo Nina
The Benefits of Journaling
Reach Your Goals
Having a journaling buddy who can help keep you on track is a great idea! Take your accountability to the next level by writing your goals down and then sharing them with your support system. This will solidify those life goals in your mind and will provide you with an opportunity to develop a specific plan for achieving them.
Track Emotions
As emotional beings, another benefit of consistent journaling is that it helps to process what you feel and why. By tracking your emotions, you can work out patterns and it can become easier to establish what triggers positive and negative feelings. By identifying these triggers, you may be able to avoid the negative triggers or work through ways to reduce the effect they have on you.
Improve Your Memory
Remember making flashcards to digest information in school? The same benefit you gained during this exercise is also reflected when journaling. When you write things by hand, your brain generally processes the information better and can more easily commit things to memory. Journaling can also guide your mind to focus on one topic at a time.
Clear Your Mind
As much as writing a memory down can help you remember those moments, this process can also clear your mind of empty, unnecessary thoughts. Instead, these thoughts are recorded permanently, allowing you to revisit them when needed.
A clear mind has many benefits, including falling asleep faster and reducing the chances of bad dreams and nightmares. Clearing the subconscious of the day’s events reduces the stressful material that the brain can use to form negative dreams.
Boost Creativity
As the topics within your journal are personal, this can lift that pressure you may feel to be perfect and allow your mind to flow freely. Allowing words to fly onto the paper effortlessly in a space free from judgment can help develop creative skills.
Reduce Anxiety and Depression
In the past two years, WHO has reported a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide. Journaling provides numerous health benefits, including the ability to reduce stress and depression. By journaling, you are clearing and calming your mind, allowing space for positive thoughts. This is also an organized way to work through the root of your anxiety and create a plan to manage it efficiently and effectively.
Better Your Health
Journaling can improve your mental AND physical health! Producing positive emotions while you write improves sleeping patterns and reduces stress, improving your immune system and helping your body fight illness.
Nina’s Favorite Journaling Tools