Table of Contents
Why is journaling good for self-love?
Journaling is one of the best ways to promote self-love. Regularly putting pen to paper can provide you with daily reminders of exactly why you’re so awesome and unique — and give you the confidence to take the next steps in your own personal development journey. A journal can be a safe, non-judgmental place to exhale and explore your thoughts, emotions and experiences. Reflecting upon your life and writing down your thoughts can be a cathartic process that increases self-awareness, alleviates stress and leads to personal growth. 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. Writing, like anything, improves with practice. When you journal every day, you’re practicing the art of writing. And if you use a journal to express your thoughts and ideas, it can help improve your communication skills. The clear winner is the BestSelf Co. Self Journal, which offers 13 weeks of guided prompts and features to help journalers realign with their goals without feeling intimidated. Self-love pushes you to take care of your own needs. You’ll learn to give to yourself, and in doing so, you will develop into the person you strive to be. You’ll celebrate the beauty and freedom of being true to you, and you’ll gain a solidified sense of who you truly are.
Is journaling helpful or harmful?
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. 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. 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. Journaling helps keep your brain in tip-top shape. Not only does it boost memory and comprehension, it also increases working memory capacity, which may reflect improved cognitive processing. Both depression and anxiety are often accompanied by negative thoughts. Journaling allows you to get these thoughts down on paper, process them in a more analytical, non-emotional way, and then respond appropriately to them. 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.