Journaling Self Care: What It Is And How To Do It

When you were younger, and the world seemed to be against you, you probably needed an outlet-we all did.

So you kept a diary, a best friend you could talk to whenever you needed it, with no judgment, punishment, or shame.

You could get all your troubles out onto paper and it would feel like it was lifted off your shoulders.

You may have stopped using a diary once you reached adulthood. But the concept and its benefits still apply.

Now the world calls it journaling. It’s simply writing down your thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly.

If you struggle with stress, anxiety, depression, or just need to talk to someone and let out your emotions, journaling can be a great outlet.

It can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health.

Benefits of Journaling for Selfcare

Journaling is an intimate and effective way to dive deeper into emotions, allowing you to better understand them and figure out how to better manage and cope with your emotions.

Journaling is a healthy way to express your emotions and can help you understand your mental state better, there are many more benefits to journaling:

-Can help with anxiety management

-Great coping mechanism for stress and reduces it, keeping a journal can help you identify what’s causing that stress.

-Coping with Depression

-Understanding triggers and how to not only cope with them but avoid them as well.

-Allows you to practice positive self-talk

-Improves self-confidence and self-esteem

-Track your fears and draw up plans on how to conquer them

-Identifying and addressing negative thoughts and behaviors and how to suppress them and change the narrative

Journaling is just one way to live a healthier lifestyle, supplement it with other positive practices to better allow you an optimal life.

Other Benefits Of Journaling That Can Assist With Your Daily Life Are:

-Allows you to keep track of and record your goals

-Makes it easier to attain these goals and allows you to record your accomplishments

-Allows you to find inspiration in your daily life, especially with creative journaling.

-Habit tracking, allowing you to maintain and build healthy habits and let go of unhealthy ones.

How To Start Journaling for Mental Health

Journaling for mental health can be a powerful self-help technique that you can start today.

In its simplest form, all you need is a notebook, pen, and a few minutes. You might try journaling if you feel stressed, are having anxiety flare-ups, or find that you’re struggling to deal with your emotions lately. 

There are many ways to journal. Use whatever method feels comfortable, convenient, and easy for you. The most important thing to do is to just begin and figure out what works for you along the way. 

Need help getting started? Try the following tips:

-You don’t have to write first thing in the morning, many people like to journal as soon as they wake up. They try to fill their morning pages while their thoughts are still fresh in their minds. This can be hard to do if you’re like me and need at least ten cups of coffee before you can function. The time of day doesn’t really matter, do it when you feel most comfortable.

-Get some accountability, having a journaling buddy can make it easier to start and help you actually stick with it long enough for you to see results.

-Start small and keep your expectations realistic. Set a small goal to begin with, like writing for 1-5 minutes a day, rather than expecting to fill out five pages instantly. This will allow you to stay consistent and not feel like you’re not doing enough, make your goals small and attainable, and work your way up from there.

-If you’ve got writer’s block, doodle. Journaling is different for us all. Maybe you’re more visual and not so good with words, but you can still benefit from journaling. Just grab a pen and paper and start to doodle, do whatever your mind feels is right. Or look at some journaling prompts to really get you into the writing mood.

As I just mentioned, there are many types of journaling, here are a few of my favorites.

Types of Journaling

There are many different types of journaling, and the key to reaping the full benefits of journaling is finding the right type for you.

Journaling should feel therapeutic and fun, it should be your outlet in the way you feel most comfortable expressing yourself.

If you aren’t sure if journaling is right for you or find yourself struggling to journal daily, you might want to look into the different types of journaling out there. Maybe you just haven’t found the right way to journal for yourself.

Here are some great different ways to journal:

1. Bullet Journaling

Probably the one you’re most familiar with bullet journaling is one of the most popular journaling methods.

You have most likely seen this type of journaling online. They are usually on a dotted or blank page and look like a planner with pretty notes and doodles. A bullet journal is like a planner of sorts, with a more personal touch.

A mental health bullet journal is a place where you can record your thoughts and feelings and support your mental well-being.

Some ways include organizing your day or using it as a wellness and mood tracker, expressing your feelings through a brain dump or morning pages, writing about past events, or practicing gratitude. 

2. Reflective Journaling

A reflective journal or diary is where most people jot down their most important thoughts.

In your reflective journal, you can write about positive or negative events that you are experiencing or experienced, what it means or meant to you, and how it has affected you.

A well-executed reflective journal can impact you positively in so many ways:

–Helps you make sense of your life experiences: When writing in a reflective journal, act as though you are spelling out every small detail to someone who wasn’t present. Sometimes, I like to act like I was witnessing the experience rather than part of it. This can help you gain a new perspective and see it in the eyes of other people that were involved.

–Understanding why something happened: Speculating why something is the way it is can be a very useful exercise in understanding why events take place. Maybe you’ve been blaming yourself for something and don’t understand why it would happen to you. Keeping a reflective journal may help you better deal with those emotions.

–Allows you to use your past to plan your future: After writing about your experience and noting your views on it, think to yourself how you can optimize your views to better plan and achieve your goals. Avoid experiences that have made you feel negative towards yourself and curate the ones that align with your goals.

–Gets thoughts out of your head and makes them more tangible: Writing down your thoughts can help relieve pressure or help resolve problems. It will also help you focus on the tasks at hand.

3. Daily Journaling

Daily journaling is the act of thinking about your life and writing it down each day. That simple.

It’s highly effective, yet super simple. It takes up 5 minutes of your day but can make a huge difference.

With the recent spike in journaling online, with the pretty bullet journals and cute binders, it can seem really intimidating to try it out. You might feel like you want to fit in and do it like everyone else but, I’m here to tell you otherwise. It can certainly be that way for some people, but it doesn’t have to be that way for you.

Take it from me. I simply use a pen and paper to journal daily. I use no prompts, no felt tip pens, just that.

4. Art Journaling

Art journaling is a visual way to express and release your emotions. You can use this outlet to understand your ideas, thoughts emotions, and overall yourself.

There are a number of ways you can use this form of journaling and it can allow you to be as expressive as you want to be.

You can draw, sketch, paint, scribble, collage, photograph, rip, tear, stamp, glue, sew, print, and create in any way you choose.

You think about different things to draw inspiration for, your day, what you ate for breakfast, songs, places you have visited, what you have done this week, or what you plan to do.

The options are endless!

5. Gratitude journaling

Gratitude journaling is the habit of recording and reflecting on things that you are grateful for on a daily or weekly basis.

It’s typically a way to trick your brain into only focusing on the positives of your day and what you are grateful for. You are basically counting your blessings or listing out all the good things in your life.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a popular practice in positive psychology – the scientific study of happiness.

Feel like you have nothing to be grateful for, Behind The Classroom has a great blog post on 22 Things To Be Grateful For.

6. Calendar Journaling

A calendar journal is basically a journal or diary used to record details of your life such as experiences, feelings, or thoughts.

Whereas a notebook is open and has no structure, a calendar journal provides sections for each day, week, or month. In a calendar journal, each section is used to record events or thoughts relevant to that date.

This allows you to methodically organize your thoughts and experiences and better understand how you felt on specific days, what could have caused it, and how to better cope with your emotions.

7. Meditation Journaling

A meditation journal is a place where you write down what you feel and experience when you meditate. Some people may choose to use the journal they are already keeping as part of their daily lives, while others prefer to use a special book designed especially for meditation journaling.

What you choose to put in your journal is entirely up to you. You can use prompts you find online, or you can simply put down the date, the amount of time you spend meditating, the time and technique, and most importantly how you felt during the meditation.

The journal entry can be a sentence, a paragraph, or just a few words.

Once you start writing and reflecting on your meditation session, more thoughts may come to mind.

8. Creative Journaling

Creative journaling is a mix of written words and art, all in one place. Doodles and diary entries, colors and poem collections, new ideas, and newspaper clippings… can all find a home on the pages of a creative journal.

There are really no rules when it comes to the creative form of journaling, you just put your pen to paper and allow it to speak for you.

Whatever form of journaling stands out for you, allow yourself to experiment and really find the one that works best for you. Mix and match the types to get your hybrid form of journaling. What’s really important is that you do what works for you.