Remember having a fancy diary or journal back in childhood where we used to write our everyday events. Be it a letter to a best friend, or a trip to the park, we used to pen everything before ending our day. But as we grow older, life just gets busier and makes us abandon these habits.
What if I tell you, you need to relive that habit of writing to improve your mental health?
Yes, you read it right!
Let’s have a look at how journaling can actually revolutionize your mental well-being.
Kicks Out Anxiety and Depression
One of the cornerstones of anxiety and depression is overthinking and not being able to process the events happening around you. Have you ever been in a situation where you find yourself stressed and overwhelmed? You just feel stuck by those thoughts that keep twisting around into a big knot.
Nothing really makes sense at that time. Right?
This is where journaling can help you assemble your thoughts, gain clarity, and improve your thinking power. It helps you recognize and develop a deeper understanding of your inner feelings, which calms your anxiety and helps fight depression. People experience much less depressive symptoms and anxiety after merely one month of starting this habit.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
We often feel very uncomfortable about expressing our fears, and traumas. No matter how painful these traumas may be, we tend to keep them masked. However, it is extremely important to confront, recognize, and accept those feelings and traumas, in order to deal with and manage them. Journaling provides an excellent tool for this emotional catharsis.
Once you muster up the courage to start writing, it just feels like a stream of emotions flowing down. Once you are done writing, you feel much relieved. This is because you finally confront what is bothering you, the first and foremost step of trauma healing. Studies have also shown the positive impact of journaling on emotional health and well-being.
Cultivates Gratitude
Gratitude and optimism are essential to maintain your mental sanity. Practicing gratitude on a daily basis helps keep negativity away. It also makes you focus and ponder upon the things and people you have rather than those you are always looking for. You start to realize their importance and this helps inculcate happiness and positivity.
Journaling is a great tool to practice this gratitude.
When you make a habit of writing the things you are grateful for, you confront a lot of things that you never valued or thought about. This can change your overall thought process and even prevent many mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances. You feel less stressed and bothered by people and unwanted events because your center of focus is something different.
Improves Emotional Intelligence
The world is a global village. We are always surrounded by various people, be it family, friends, colleagues, or even rivals. These people also have an impact on our mental health. Emotional intelligence helps manage our emotions as well as those of others around us.
Journaling improves overall emotional intelligence and mental capabilities.
We are much less vulnerable to mental disorders especially anxiety and over-thinking when we are unable to recognize how people around us feel. Self-awareness is a prerequisite of emotional intelligence. Once you are clear about yourself, only then you can help those people, and keep a positive environment around yourself.
The Takeaway Message
In a world full of revolutions and technologies, the simplicity of jotting your feelings down can never be ignored. Journaling is much more impactful for your mental health than you think. It helps you build resilience, sensitivity, and emotional capability. Above all, it makes you a listener for yourself. Hence, it prevents as well as manages several mental disorders.
It is advised to inculcate this positive habit in your lifestyle and explore the profound impact on your life. Because,
