Table of Contents
How journaling impact mental health?
Journaling helps control your symptoms and improve your mood by: Helping you prioritize problems, fears, and concerns. Tracking any symptoms day-to-day so that you can recognize triggers and learn ways to better control them. Providing an opportunity for positive self-talk and identifying negative thoughts and … Studies have also shown that journaling can reduce the frequency of intrusive, depressive thoughts, help college students who are vulnerable to depression, and reduce overall levels of depression in those diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder. There are also benefits of journaling for anxiety symptoms. 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 results suggest that keeping a journal led to more optimism and gratitude, both of which can boost well-being. A 2018 study suggests that writing about positive experiences for just 15 minutes a day three times a week may help ease feelings of anxiety and stress and boost resilience.
What are the negative effects of journaling?
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 also helps people hone their focus so that they think about only one thing at a time. When you write your thoughts by hand, you can only write one word at a time. Your thoughts slow down to match your writing speed and you’ll find that it’s easier to slip out of your overthinking mindset. Journaling can make you feel worse when you brood on the page, when writing is just a method of venting in which you constantly reinforce the story at the core of your reactions and emotions. In this case, indulging your anger only prolongs it — and your suffering. Journaling evokes mindfulness and helps writers remain present while keeping perspective. It presents an opportunity for emotional catharsis and helps the brain regulate emotions. It provides a greater sense of confidence and self-identity. So can journaling be harmful? The answer is yes, there are scenarios in which journaling can be harmful, but these scenarios are easily avoidable. Just like anything, you have to moderate the amount of time you spend doing it. You simply have to know when to stop.