Journaling for Mental Health
Journaling for Mental Health
Kelly Anderson, Ph.D.
Journaling is something that most people have done at one point or another in their lifetime. Many of us had journals or diaries when we were young, where we wrote some of our most private thoughts, hopes, and dreams. Others of us have been told that writing down our thoughts is a good way to process our emotions and can feel cathartic. This is supported by research and is why so many therapists and mental health workers recommend this as a great starting place for clients to build insight and self-reflection.
Research has found that journaling has similar benefits as therapy. While the benefits of journaling are not as robust (that is not as strong or as widespread) as therapy, they are similar in a number of ways. Researchers have found that regular journaling is linked to many positive outcomes. To name a few, journaling has been found to be associated with:
Increased self-awareness
Increased understanding of thoughts and emotions
Reduced symptoms of anxiety
Reduced symptoms of depression
Improved understanding of goals and priorities
Better boundary setting
If you google “journal for mental health” right now, you will get thousands of suggestions. Some of these are bullet journals (writing in bullet points), some are prompts (helping to guide your writing for that day), some are picture/drawing based, and still, others are more specific (journals for women, or trauma recovery, or prompts using bible quotes).
Each of these has its own merits and downsides. None are better or worse than others, they are all just a little different and the style of one will likely resonate with you over another. However, you might also notice that these journals can be quite a price and I’m of the opinion that using skills doesn’t need to be costly.
Benefiting from journaling need not be expensive or fancy. When working with clients who want to begin journaling, I offer them a simple single subject, spiral notebook - which I buy yearly at the before-school sales at Walmart where you can get two notebooks for less than a dollar! There’s nothing fancy about it and it allows clients to have a blank slate to work out what style of journaling suits them best.
When working with clients, I often recommend that clients use journaling between sessions if they feel like there’s a lot going on that we don’t have time for in sessions, that they forget important experiences by the time we meet again, or if they’re feeling overwhelmed. Journaling between sessions can help to continue to process thoughts and emotions leading to change a little more quickly. It’s not unusual for clients to share some of their journal entries for context and discussion in sessions and this is particularly helpful for clients processing trauma or very complex emotional situations. Another point I may suggest journaling is when stress is increasing due to transitions or life changes or clients have big decisions to make. Writing, taking a day or two to process, and then coming back to where you left off can help to deepen the processing of decisions or prioritization leading to better decision making and outcomes.
There is no right or wrong way to journal. There is no research (at least that I’m aware of ) that has found a negative association with journaling - and in fact the massive amount of existing research shows benefits in a myriad of groups (ages, ethnicities, gender, occupations, economic backgrounds). In other words, there’s no harm in journaling and if you think it’s something you’d be interested in, now’s the time to try!
All that being said, I have a few guidelines I like to share with clients when starting their journaling adventure that tends to help.
Start Small
If you plan to go from never journaling to journaling for an hour a day, you’re likely in for some hard times. Making a consistent change tends to work best in small, incremental changes rather than big swooping ones
Set aside 5-10 minutes a day to journal - if you want/need more time, you can go on, but keep the time investment low so it doesn’t become too much
Plan to journal most days of the week rather than daily (at least at first) so that you don’t set the expectations too high setting yourself up for failure
Do what works
Pick a type of journaling that works for you - research would show that writing (pen to paper) is better than typing or verbally dictating
If the idea of writing is terrible or you have a situation where writing isn’t possible, do what works for you!
Choose a time of day and days of the week that tend to work better than others to help build consistency and minimize barriers
Keep it simple
Be flexible - some days you may be up to writing beautiful prose and another day you may be able to only draw a sad face. That’s okay!
If you find that what you set up isn’t working, try changing how, when, and where you’re trying to journal and see if those changes help
The goal of journaling is to build time for reflection, to slow your thoughts and process them, and find an outlet to share emotions and thoughts. If you start to build the habit of journaling, you’ll likely find that overall, you become more self-reflective. You may find that you check in more often with your thoughts and feelings which allows you the space to experience those emotions or employ coping skills if you want to regulate your emotions.