When life gets too much, and you are feeling stressed or anxious, it can be useful to start writing a journal. Journaling is great for when you are feeling under pressure, worried about loved ones, work, money etc. and/or just feel like your head might explode.
Using a daily journal to capture your thoughts and put them down on paper can be a simple but effective way to offload. You can start to process some of your unhelpful thought patterns and highlight the positive stuff you are doing.
A journal is just for you and you can keep it anywhere. You might prefer a digital journal which you can update on the move. Capturing how you are feeling and what thoughts you are having can be useful in terms of improving your self-awareness. You might find it difficult to talk things over and a journal is an excellent way to share how you are really feeling.
If you put time aside each day, spending just a few minutes capturing your thoughts and working through the events of a day. This is a simple but effective mindfulness exercise.
If you struggle to write a journal, and don’t know what to put in it, you could set yourself some questions for example:
- Three positive things which have happened today
- Ask yourself what you are grateful for?
- Ask yourself what you are looking forward to/what are you excited about in the future?
- What is your secret desire?
- What the best bit of advice you’ve had today?
- What frustrated you about today?
- What is your biggest fear?
- What advice would your best friend give you?
- What did you try hard at today?
- If you had a magic wand what would you fix? Who would you make disappear?
- What mistake did you make that taught you something?
- What did you do today that was kind?
- What made you laugh out loud?
Personalise your journal, draw pictures, add in photos, cuttings etc. Use different colours to bring your journal to life. Make it your own, make it fun, make it about you. Enjoy journaling.
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