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Does journaling cause overthinking?
Even scientific evidence backs this technique—researchers have found journaling can help reduce intrusive thoughts, organize scattered memories and improve your overall mental and physical health. Journaling also helps people hone their focus so that they think about only one thing at a time. Numerous studies have shown that journaling can reduce overall levels of depression. A 2006 study by Stice, Burton, Bearman, & Rohde showed that writing in a journal can be as effective as cognitive-behavioral therapy when it comes to reducing the risk of depression in young adults. Studies show it’s better to journal at night because it gives you an outlet for emotions and thoughts that might otherwise keep you awake. You can use social media, a curated practice, or even not writing at all to get some of the same benefits as people find through journaling. Finding your alternative to journaling will help you be more productive, motivated, and positive.
Why do I resist journaling?
Why Do We Resist? In a nutshell — resistance is fear and/or doubt. In regards to beginning a journaling practice, resistance will likely boil down to being fearful or nervous of what may come up, or being doubtful that the practice carries any weight. I found it to be true that the main difficulty people have with journaling is fear. Here, I will talk about some of the most common fears. Sometimes people are afraid that they are not doing it right, that they don’t know HOW to journal. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Journaling is something that either feels childish or intimidating to most of us, but the incredible benefits we get from it are well-documented. If you’re like most of us, you’ve probably started a journal at some point or kept a diary when you were a kid. Journaling is something that either feels childish or intimidating to most of us, but the incredible benefits we get from it are well-documented. If you’re like most of us, you’ve probably started a journal at some point or kept a diary when you were a kid.
Is journaling helpful for everyone?
Keeping a journal helps you create order when your world feels like it’s in chaos. You get to know yourself by revealing your most private fears, thoughts, and feelings. Look at your writing time as personal relaxation time. It’s a time when you can de-stress and wind down. But journaling isn’t for everyone. Some people find that it doesn’t feel calming or fulfilling and the stress of finding the “perfect” words to put on paper can be overwhelming. As a child, I would get super excited every time I got a new diary or notebook—and then stress out if I missed writing for a few days. Whether you’re dealing with stress from school, burnout from work, an illness, or anxiety, journaling can help in many ways: It can reduce your anxiety. Journaling about your feelings is linked to decreased mental distress. Sometimes keeping a journal of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences helps, but often it makes things worse. In general, it is likely to hurt if it tries to help you “know yourself” in isolation and helps if it leads to greater understanding and behavior change in your interactions with others. While a journal cannot replace a therapist, it can be therapeutic. What a journal can do is help you to notice patterns in your behaviour and emotional responses. It’s an opportunity to reflect on your experiences, feelings, thoughts and behaviour. “It’s real fear, for sure, but it’s fear of the blank page, fear of what you might put down on that page, and fear of what might happen once you write it down and make it real.” The fear of someone else reading your work is just “a prettied-up excuse for not writing,” she says.