Whether or not you are struggling with your mental health, journaling is a great practice that everyone should adopt. It helps you keep a record of your emotions, thoughts, and inspirations. Many people enjoy writing in physical journals with a pen, but you can also type or draw, depending on your preference.

Of course, journaling may not feel easy. Initially, it may seem like work since you will be writing every day. But is journaling good for your mental health? We assure you that journaling is, indeed, a great way to maintain your mental health and take care of yourself.

Here are some benefits of journaling:

Helps Lower Anxiety

Journaling is all about noting down your feelings and emotions that cause mental distress or any sort of heightened emotions. According to studies, those who suffered from multiple mental illnesses were found to benefit greatly from writing in their journal for fifteen minutes, twice a week for twelve weeks.

This encouraged feelings of happiness and calm, leading to a fewer number of depressive episodes. The study showed that the participants enjoyed better mental health even twelve weeks after journaling.

Helps with Brooding

You may have heard that talking about a traumatic event helps you heal from it faster. The key is to get out of your head and voice your story so that you can give yourself a chance to process it. Similarly, when you write about an emotional episode, you can stop the unhealthy cycle of overthinking that you may be experiencing.

However, when it comes to journaling, timing is everything. Several studies show that journaling immediately after going through something emotional will only make you feel worse and distraught.

 Helps Create Awareness

When you pen down your feelings, thoughts, and emotions related to a certain event, you start to understand it better. In fact, you may even see a newer perspective now that you are clearer in your thinking patterns.

This is mainly because when you give structure to your thoughts, they are more likely to develop into permanent concepts in your head, hence, creating awareness.

Helps Regulate Emotions

Many studies have conducted brain scans of individuals who journaled in their notebooks or laptops each day. These scans showed that these individuals had an easier time controlling their emotions and feelings, as opposed to those that did not journal.

Moreover, studies also found that writing about feelings, emotions, and thoughts in a more abstract way was more likely to be calming, as exposed to writing about every significant detail of a traumatic event.

So, at the end of all that, is journaling good for your mental health? To sum it up, journaling is great for your mental health and should definitely be included in your everyday routine!