Journal for your health

It has been proven that people who journal are healthier, happier, more in touch with their emotions and more balanced. The good news is… you do not have to be a “writer”… you just have to WRITE!

I often recommend to my clients that they take up journaling as a part of their Self Care practice. In this blog post, I would love to share with you 7 reasons why journaling is a great practice to follow and why you could make it part of your daily self-care regime.

1. Helps you to remember the little things!

You know when you often look back on life – we tend to appreciate the BIG things that we achieved, but more often than not it is the “small” things or everyday occurrences that people bring up at family get-togethers. These “smaller” things in life are very often the glue that keeps “things together” or the experiences that splash colour onto the pages of our lives. Often when we pencil these moments onto our journal pages, we are more likely to remember them also!

2. Making sense of it all

I love this saying… “When you journal the trees, you can see the forest”. When we take some time to write about these little things, situations etc. the bigger picture starts to make that little bit more sense to us. What seems like noise and chaos sometimes, needs to write down and may be reviewed at another time to see the patterns and logic emerge.

3. You gain some insights

When we journal every day we could get some valuable insights into who we are or we might notice something about a family member when it is written down. For instance, you might not realise how much exercise supports your mental health until you start to notice that your “mood” or “the way you think” is significantly different on the days/weeks that you exercise or go for a walk as opposed to the days you don’t. Similarly, you might notice a quirk with one of your children, which might’ve gone unnoticed if you did not write it down.

4. Hear yourself think

Our lives can be so busy that we don’t even give ourselves a thought! Journaling is a great way to take some space to put our thoughts to paper. These could be some great ideas that we might have or just feelings or thoughts that create a “niggly feeling”, that has an impact on your overall mood.

To be fair sometimes, we don’t hear how crazy our thoughts/ideas are until we actually pen them down. And sometimes we don’t even know what we are thinking until we sit down and put pen to paper.

5. Way to process emotions

It is astonishing what can flow from you when you put pen to paper. Sometimes you could be harbouring feelings that you didn’t even realise were there. We here at Dore Concepts are great advocates for putting pen to paper, and allowing emotions, solutions, ideas, and thoughts to flow.

At times we might not realise how much a situation has impacted us until we start letting it out. Journaling gives you a space to let it all out. Once you do you feel lighter, stronger and clearer.

6. Safe Place to express

Journaling can be a safe, cathartic release of pent-up emotions, frustrations, and stresses of daily life. It can be used as a place where you can express anything and everything, without feeling you will tread on anyone’s toes… Have you ever felt “I just wish I can say this or that, without there being any reaction or consequences”? Well, journaling offers you that space to say exactly how you feel.

7. Synthesise what you have learned

Whether that be from a real-life situation or a conference or event you attended…. We have all attended a talk or conference, and heard something really valuable or impactful during it. But as soon as it is over, we go back to our lives and get busy and never really take the time to reflect on how it relates to us, or how we can apply what was discussed to our own lives. Did you know, that if we do not write what we have learned down or synthesise the information we heard, we forget 80% of what we have learned within 48 hours! Scary, huh?! Journaling can be a great space to integrate what we have learned. Re-write the event/ talk/situation and what you took from it. This helps you to integrate and synthesise the info and helps you to apply the learning.

I do hope this article and what I have shared here, spurs you on to start Journalling! If you like the art of writing or have a need to just express what is going on for you at any given moment, but there has not been the opportune time to do so, give it a go! Not only will you feel lighter, but you will also create a lot more "space" in your mind or energetically. Keeping "stuff" in our minds or rehearsing conversations or situations over and over, use a lot of energy! What could you do instead if you had that energy freed up? Or this could become a whole new for you to express your creativity! 

Happy Journalling!