We have all come across the term journaling all over our social media. Some of us already have the habit of maintaining one, while a lot of us do not know how to articulate the actual meaning of it. Journaling, in its rawest form, means expressing your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. We, as humans, undergo regular ebbs and flows of emotions, most of which are left unattended and accumulate to later come out in various undesired ways. It is absolutely necessary to acknowledge your feelings and make note of their intensity. This way, it is easier to deal with our surrounding situations.

What are the benefits of journaling?

Journaling is a way of taking care of yourself. To sit with yourself and confront yourself improves the way we see ourselves. As we extensively take notes on our likes and dislikes, wants and needs, we get closer to understanding ourselves with each of these steps.
How we see ourselves has a huge impact on how we deal with our relationships with people. Journaling also helps us cope with our traumas and rough experiences in life. There are multiple forms of journaling: travel journals, lifestyle journals, personal journals, memory journals, music journals, art journals, etcetera. We document parts of our lives in diaries that are left behind even when we are gone.

Emotional release and processing, clarity and insight goal setting and achievement

Amidst the constant rush in the world, we do not really look out for ourselves. When asked, we are left with no answer other than that we have no time to perform self-care religiously. The journey of self-care begins with enabling space for your feelings to exist and letting yourself go through them. There is a quote which says, ‘grow through what you go through’. This quote is an amazing example, which describes that we should let ourselves learn from all the life incidents that we go through daily. All the ups and downs, troughs and ridges teach us various lessons, and above all, they teach us the patience to deal with hardships in life. Journaling plays an important role in dealing with these obstacles in our daily lives. Nowadays, with the growing social community, a greater number of people tend to stay indoors and face the crowd. No matter where we live or decide to be, emotions are a part of our systems. When these emotions are not well understood, they reflect on our personalities, and sometimes they become the most integral parts of our personalities.
Journaling our thoughts and emotions gives us clarity about what we feel. The clarity, thus, helps us to release the energy that we possess within through the deliberate use of words. In this process of releasing the energy, be it positive or negative, we let go of the bindings within ourselves. Holding on to grudges or anger ultimately leads our perspectives to be clouded, which directly causes biases in judgement. These personal biases cause hindrances in the path of our growth and, furthermore, create an absolute negative impression on our minds. Therefore, taking notes on daily life events, even if they are minute in your vision board, will help us in the long run build a healthy foundation for our perspective.
How does maintaining a journal help us achieve our goals?
Journaling also includes religiously maintaining a list of things that are to be done, day-wise, weekly, monthly or even in one year. At the beginning of a new year, people visualise themselves achieving certain things that they were unable to secure or possess that very year. A very contemporary way of manifesting your expected goals of the year are vision boards. It consists of snippets of memories in the form of quotes and pictures about what you aim to achieve, and it has actually helped people gain a wider view of their purpose.
Psychological studies perform an imagery technique to enhance relaxation and the mental well-being of people. This technique is called guided imagery. The vision board tends to perform in quite a similar way, in which we feel motivated and enthusiastic about our aims.
To achieve a bigger goal, the smaller steps should be followed regularly. Setting up smaller goals gets you closer to the extensive target. The list helps to provide a push to ultimately get closer to our daily achievements.
A huge part of our growth also depends solely on how we see ourselves. If we do not respect our needs and value our requirements, this would also reflect on how we perceive other’s needs and requirements. Doing things for yourself is not being selfish; it actually implies that you put yourself before anyone. This is harmless, as you have been the only person witnessing your journey of evolution through various phases of life, and taking care of your mind and body is crucial. First thing in the morning, the time that is used for scrolling through social media can actually be replaced by spending time with yourself—expressing gratitude for showing up every day for yourself, writing down positive affirmations about yourself, and making a list of things that are required to be done throughout the day (like a task list). Journaling can be incorporated into your morning ritual, and it is very healthy to begin the day by getting to know what energy is in abundance for the day.

Different types of journaling

Let’s take a closer look at the different types of journaling methods. There are a wide variety of ways in which you can maintain a journal, and in today’s world, where social media acts as the best sharing platform, people have actually taken the digital mode of journaling pretty seriously. It is so lovely to see people try on new activities, learning new skills, performing daily rituals, doing so much to keep their mental health in a safer space, and also that they have actually created a community worldwide. More people are getting inspired and coming forward with their lifestyle videos and reels that are further inspiring more people. These are some of the forms of journaling.

• Bullet journal: maintaining a strict format of point-wise note-taking where we document and take notes on our desired content for journaling.
• Self-care journal: this method is a must-do sort of journal where we write down things all about ourselves. What we feel, perceive, think, manifest, etc.
• Travel journal: this is a track of all the places that you visit or make a list of places you want to visit in the future. This is mostly for the travel enthusiast.
• Cooking journal: where we keep a record of all the recipes that we create, learn, or practice.
• Fitness journals: these are used to keep record-wise data on our fitness journey. It is a very helpful method to build a healthy lifestyle.
• Art journals: these are a well-known kind where people express feelings through art.

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Practicing conscious writing

Journaling enables us to unleash our deepest needs. As the current situation suggests, AI is gradually claiming its position in all sectors of the workspaces. This brings me to the concept of conscious writing, which is the concept of being attentive when writing to actually recognise your full potential. Conscious writing helps us to be present in the moment and understand what we feel ‘now’. This process is a helpful way to take notes on the current occurrences in our lives and record them in journals.

What is gratitude journaling?
This method of journaling is enormously essential, as it helps us to reflect on all the things that we are grateful for. This record-keeping format helps our brains to relink all the present-day happenings and be thankful to ourselves for showing up. A gratitude journal helps to build a stronger self-image and boost self-confidence.

Techniques for effective self-reflection

1. Ask yourself questions
   • Confronting yourself with questions provides a vivid insight of our feelings and emotions. This helps you find the correct word to use when it comes to journaling. Labeling your emotions effectively helps us understand ourselves better and, thus, helps us grow our communication skills as we start to empathize with others.
2. Reflect on your day
   • Reflecting or reminiscing about your day helps to recall the experiences that were learned, and parts of ourselves that need more attention can be easily identified. The brain rewires to race back all the occurrences and mark the stronger impressions of feelings, which further makes journaling easier.
3. Identify patterns and trends
   • Identifying our patterns of approach, response, and behaviour can actually help us. Usually, we tend to follow certain patterns or ways of approaching others when our turn comes to reciprocate. If this, directly or indirectly, hurts ourselves or the people around us, then it requires special attention. This way, we can build healthy relationships with ourselves and the people around us as we get to know ourselves better and work on our unhealthy ways of dealing with situations.

Tips for maintaining a journaling habit

• Start small – it is absolutely okay to write small portions everyday. Gradually, when you get into the habit of it, you will feel like writing more.
• Find inspiration – In order to begin writing or filling pages in your journal, finding the things that give you joy or the moments that have caused a wave of emotion to occur in you is very important.
• Experiment – journaling is a healthy mode of time-consumption, and for some of us, it might as well get boring over time, monotonous, as our lives get usually. To find joy in journaling, it is also important to make it colourful and vibrant. Designing and decorating your journal makes it less monotonous and interests us in creativity.

Conclusion:

Journaling, therefore, has various ways to keep our lifestyles on a healthy path. It not only builds our relationships with ourselves better, but it also helps to maintain healthy relationships with our close ones. Paying closer attention to our emotions and recognising patterns in our behaviours help to break the loop of toxicity. Journaling helps us keep track of our journey and motivates us through this path of growth.

Frequently asked Questions:

1. How can journaling help my mental health?
   • People have only benefited in their journey of mental health improvement by journaling. It helps our brain to rewire and keep track of our feelings regularly, work on our approach, and gradually mend deeper-rooted issues. This helps in building healthy relationships with people around us, along with ourselves.
2. What if I don’t know what to write?
   • At the beginning phase of journaling, a lot of us are confused as to how to start. It is absolutely okay to feel this way. Sit down with yourself and ask yourself questions. Take notes on how you feel. Further, go deeper by asking yourself: What is making you feel so? What can you do to improve this?
   • Apart from this, there are journals that already have prompts built-in, and they are best if you are a beginner at journaling.
3. Is there “a right” way to journal?
   • No, there is specifically no right or wrong way of journaling. The more you invest into it, the better you start understanding yourself. Journaling is personal, and it should encompass everything that you feel.