7 Reasons Why Journaling Is Good For Your Health

Have you been intending to start a journal for years but just haven't gotten around to it? Or have you started in the past but just couldn't stick with it? I'm here to give you a little encouragement to pickup that pen and paper and start journaling. If you're feeling stressed, stuck, or overwhelmed, journaling may be your ticket to freedom.

For decades, I've maintained a journaling practice that has been instrumental in my personal growth, healing, and self-discovery. What started as an organic need to jot down my thoughts as a child, likely stemming from my own childhood loneliness, has evolved into a cherished practice that I credit with supporting my own resilience and insight.

There was something so alluring about a little book with a lock. Do you remember those? I especially remember the ones that would always be for sale in those school fundraisers catalogs. I could just write down all of my thoughts in there and it would only be between me and the book and I could safely tuck it away. 

Nowadays, I don’t bother locking away or hiding my journals. I feel free to let them sit out in the open. My family knows that if they go browsing through something that they shouldn’t be going through, the consequences are theirs and theirs alone. My journal is and always will be a safe space for my thoughts, reflections, pains, hopes, and dreams. 

I want that kind of freedom for you too because the benefits of journaling are too good and too many to pass up. Here are 7 reasons why journaling is good for your health...

1. Stress Reduction and Enhancing Well-being

The benefits of journaling are expansive, beginning with its ability to alleviate stress. By providing a safe space to express and process your thoughts and feelings, journaling can act like a release valve for the pressures of daily life. This reduction in stress has far-reaching implications for overall well-being, including: improved sleep, reduced muscle tension, improved mood, improved relationships, lower blood pressure, improved health, better weight management, and the list goes on and on. 

Don’t believe me? Check out this video of neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart talking about the benefits of journaling from a neurological perspective. 

2. Gaining Perspective Through Reflection

Maintaining a regular journaling practice can help you develop new perspectives. When you write down your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and later review them, you can get a sense about the accuracy of your perceptions and also any patterns that may be unhelpful. 

Were you seeing things clearly or were you jumping to conclusions? Do you tend to respond to your strong emotions with helpful or unhelpful behaviors? This can be helpful for building trust in your intuition or gaining clarity on your inner voices of anxiety or criticism. Dr. Tara Swart also touches on the benefits of this reflective piece in the link above. 

3. Emotional Processing and Recognizing Needs

Journaling can be a helpful tool for becoming aware of your feelings and processing your emotions. You can begin to recognize how your feelings feel in your body. Remember, feelings are physical. They live in your body but we interpret and understand them with our mind. 

Journaling can help you better understand and tease apart your emotions. What’s underneath them? What might be triggering them? This gives you an opportunity to consider what you might be needing and/or what environmental changes might need to be made. 

If you can understand your emotions, you can communicate them and manage them, which helps you to get your needs met and maintain healthy relationships.

4. Living Authentically

Journaling can help unearth your hidden desires, dreams, values or even fears; things that perhaps have been lurking under the surface of awareness for a long time or maybe even things you never knew existed within you. It can help you clarify what matters most to you so that you can live your life according to what matters most to you.

The more you write, the more you discover. Which means, the more you get to be authentically you and live in alignment with who you truly are. Fewer things help you sleep better at night than knowing that you are living a life that is true to yourself.

5. Cultivating Gratitude

When expressing thoughts and feelings about events or experiences that frustrate you or leave you feel worried or upset, it can also be helpful to give equal attention to what you appreciate, what you are grateful for, and what goodness you do see within the situation. 

The research and reported benefits of cultivating gratitude is vast. From boosting happiness to reducing stress and mental illness, developing a simple gratitude practice in your journal could add years to your life.

6. Improved Communication

Beyond its therapeutic benefits, journaling can bolster your relational, academic and professional success by honing your communication and writing skills. If you don’t regularly journal already and if you don’t regularly need to write for work or school, there may be few opportunities for you to really develop your thoughts and put them in writing. Journaling is an amazing outlet for improving your ability to express yourself clearly. 

7. Coping with Loneliness

When you are alone and have no one to talk to, your journal is always there for you. You can write as if you are talking to a good friend, a lost loved one, your Higher Guidance, a past therapist, or anyone that would help bring you some comfort. Personally, I just prefer to write to myself or God.

Truly, just by connecting with your own thoughts and feelings by writing them down is meeting your need for being seen, heard, and understood. This can absolutely help to soften or soothe feelings of loneliness, make you feel more connected, and create more freedom in your relationships.

Wrapping it Up

Journaling is not just a simple writing exercise nor is it a trite activity done by little children in their dear diaries. It's also not something that has a "right way" or a "wrong way." Try to be patient and kind with yourself as you get started.

Journaling is a sacred and timeless practice of self-discovery, growth, healing, and empowerment. By providing a safe space for reflection, you can give yourself the gift of stress reduction, improved health and emotional well-being, and freedom.

---> I hope you'll give journaling a try and let me know how it goes!

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Disclaimer: This blog is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health care, diagnosis, or treatment. Reading this does not create a therapeutic relationship with Sherri M. Herman. If you are struggling with your mental health, please reach out to a licensed therapist or medical provider in your area.