Journal writing is writing therapy. At least 1 Billion people maintain a diary worldwide. People often maintain a diary to put their thoughts into words. Therapeutic writing exercises include meditation, yoga, and exercise, keeping a journal, etc. Here we will talk about Journal writing being a journal therapy for depression and how to journal for mental health.
According to therapists and researchers, it is a perfectly healthy outfit. It is a self-improvement tool. Through Journaling, you stop for a moment to revise, remember, and replay your whole day; you give a thought to everything that happened to you and write what you feel is important.
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It gives you mental clarity.
Writing your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and perspectives about things and situations enables you to gain mental and emotional clarity.
Keeping a record helps us to express difficult matters. Trying to express what we feel as a person about things helps us better understand who we are and what we should do next.
Writing helps us overcome emotional dilemmas. It provides us the time to process everything that is going in our lives and then thinks of ourselves and works on ourselves.
The action of writing things down relieves tension. It helps in sketching out ideas and improves mental health.
Helps in self-understanding
We read our previous record and founds out the changes we have gone through in a matter of time. Therapeutic writing exercises help our brain get the incentive.
We access previous matters, know what our perception is. It validates experiences to understand ourselves better.
It develops a sense of self. It helps you understand yourselves and the people around you. It helps you know who is important for you, you are important for whom and which person affects you, and above all, what you need to do about it.
Heals you
Journaling keeps our minds at ease and heart at peace. Our Journal becomes more like a friend to us. We can share anything, and that way, our secrets do not burden us. Also, all our secrets will be safely secured as our dear Journal will never open its mouth by herself.
Although, yeah, you have to keep your Journal a secret. Because she may not open her mouth, but others can make her mouth open and read it. So please keep it to yourself.
It heals you. It helps you overcome your traumas, relationship problems, and emotional dilemmas. Therefore, it is often used to treat conditions like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, low self-esteem, and even communication skills.
Stand-Alone Modality
Writing is considered a stand-alone modality, just like art therapy or music therapy. It allows you to express yourself without thinking about others. It gives you certainty, ideas, thoughts without coming to facts.
Feelings are expressed in psychology as a science with infinite locks, and every lock has infinite keys, but only one opens up the lock. Journaling opens that lock for you.
A friend in need
No one can understand us better than we do. It’s like having your soul as your best friend, who will never judge you nor will complain about anything. Especially she will not complain about your flaws, and your Journal will accept you as you are.
You always have a best friend to share a part of yourself with.
A Caregiver
Maintain your Journal with photographs, emojis, drawings, dialogues, and time entries if possible; it increases the feel and weight of it and helps estimate the conditions of a particular time.
Journaling appears to be an up-and-coming technique to use for counselling caregivers. Various people maintain blogs or a series of letter to oneself. I keep letters.
Celebrities who keep a Journal
Various Celebrities maintain a diary. Lady Gaga shares blogs on her website. Jennifer Aniston has been maintaining a journal since she was 13. Emma Watson and Joseph Gordon Levitt are some more celebrities who keep a diary.
Emma Watson says about her diary, “They’ve given me a place in which I can try to figure myself out because those kinds of ideas feel too personal to put out into the public or even discuss with anyone else.”
The best example of journal writing is the book we all have read or at least heard about, “The diary of a young girl”, the story of a Jewish girl “, Anne Frank”. Her diary is a living record of Adolf Hitler’s cruelty. It’s like a journal Therapy for depression.
How to Journal for mental health?
Try to write everything that is on your mind. Although, don’t write every detail in too much detail. Write in detail which is important and worth mentioning according to yourself.
Also, write emotions without censoring. It should be your side of the view because it’s your story. It shouldn’t be judgemental.
And here is an idea. Journals are very private. They have to be kept private. If you feel like no one should know about you keeping a journal, make an email ID. You can make another email ID by a nickname and then mail it from your real ID to this ID.
You can even add photos and videos this way.
Conclusion
Penning down the day is a great way of ending your day. It reflects you. Sometimes we write only a few words and sometimes whole pages. It’s the emotional range of us in particular situations and how they affect us.
It works!!
