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What is journaling for mental health UK?
It’s simply writing down your thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly. And if you struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety, keeping a journal can be a great idea. It can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health. If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or down, try therapeutic journaling. While it’s not a total replacement for therapy, it is one tool that can help you to create meaning and feel better, or serve as a helpful addition to traditional talking therapies. Therapeutic journaling is the process of writing down our thoughts and feelings about our personal experiences. This kind of private reflection allows us to sort through events that have occurred and problems that we may be struggling with. Encouraging people to check in with how they’re feeling every morning, this journal will help you to focus on what matters, prioritise what’s most important for the day ahead and track your progress. Filled with plenty of creative exercises to inspire reflection and intention setting at the start of the day. Journaling is a key morning routine habit of many highly successful people.
How do I start journaling for mental health?
[1] To start journaling, pick a convenient time to write every day and challenge yourself to write whatever comes to your mind for 20 minutes. Use your journal to process your feelings or work on your self-improvement goals. Journaling is one self-care method counselors can recommend to their clients. Clients can use this tool on their own and incorporate these entries into a therapy session. Counselors refer to journaling in therapy as writing therapy, journal therapy or expressive art therapy. Although there’s not officially a “right” age to start journaling, in my experience sooner is better! As soon as little ones can hold a pen (or a crayon, a paintbrush, etc.) let them get started on a journal by allowing them to sit in front of a blank page and get creative. Stosny believes that journaling can take a negative turn when it wallows in the unpleasant things that have happened to you, makes you a passive observer in your life, makes you self-obsessed, becomes a vehicle of blame instead of solutions, and makes you live too much in your head.