Table of Contents
Why is journaling so hard?
Part of why journaling is so hard is that it requires time. When we’re busy, it’s hard to spend much time sitting, quietly, writing our thoughts on paper. It’s important to think about what makes journaling fulfilling for you and how you can use journaling as a tool in your daily life to reduce stress, not add to it. 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. Rereading Journals is a Valuable and Powerful Activity. We not only keep journals and find the process of writing in our journal valuable. We also often reread our journals, for all sorts of reasons. This rereading experience can be just as valuable and powerful as the initial writing experience—sometimes, even more so … Cognitive journaling is a way to observe and release the thought patterns we have daily. To start changing them, we must understand the process. This is why Ragnarson coined the ABC Model of CBT to describe a cycle that can be applied to any life experience.
When journaling doesn t work?
If you’re struggling to journal, you need to maintain some sort of consistency. Set a specific time each day or once a week to journal. You can journal for 20 minutes every Sunday at 9 pm or opt for 5 minutes a day every morning at 8 am. Be specific! Journaling can be a great self-care idea for introvert. It gives us a chance to reflect in solitude and channel our thoughts into words. If you have trouble sitting still for an hour every day, journaling can be a less intimidating alternative. So often, we let our minds slip through our jam-packed schedule. 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. Many mental health experts recommend journaling because it can improve your mood and manage symptoms of depression. Studies support this and suggest journaling is good for your mental health. It may also make therapy work better. A journal and a diary are similar in kind but differ in degree. Both are used to keep personal records, but diaries tend to deal with the day to day, more data collection really, and journals with bigger picture reflection/aspiration. The Therapeutic Writing Protocol Therapeutic journaling can be done by keeping a regular journal to write about events that bring up anger, grief, anxiety, or joy that occur in daily life. It can also be used more therapeutically to deal with specific upsetting, stressful, or traumatic life events.