Journaling: Your Brain’s New Best Friend
Five science-based reasons to practice the art of journaling
To quote author Simon Sinek,
“Our WHY is our purpose, cause or belief—the driving force behind everything we do.”
Put otherwise, “why” is like wind to a sail: It’s the invisible but undeniable force that propels.
Outlined below, and to help inspire your writing journey, are five science-based reasons explaining precisely why the art of journaling can be such a brain-friendly practice.
You’ll also find thought-provoking prompts and practical tips.
1) Happiness
They go by many names: blessings, wins, jubilations, and joys. Many journalists simply call them “gratitudes.”
While these little glimmers are all around us, it can be shockingly easy to overlook them.
From a neurobiological perspective, we humans tend to be more alert to negative stimuli in our environment than to positive. While this “negativity bias” has long saved our hides, it may not always float our boats.
Take heart.
We can offset this unconscious phenomenon by bringing more conscious awareness to the good things around us.
As various studies reveal, writing about positive experiences can lead to increased feelings of happiness, improved sleep, decreased burnout, and less depressive systems.
We may not be able to eliminate the negative, but as singer-songwriter Johnny Mercy once crooned, we can indeed “ac-cen-tchu-ate the positive!”
Try it out
Take three minutes to note three things you’re grateful for today. They can be grand and sweeping (new puppy, big promotion) or small but mighty (coffee in a favorite mug, smell of fresh pine).
2) Learning & Critical Thinking
Described as a process of deep analysis and reflection, critical thinking can help guide our beliefs and actions. It supports our ability to stay open-minded and make informed decisions.
Sounds great. Where do I sign up?
Besides synthesizing research, questioning assumptions, and not relying on AI robots to answer our every human question, journaling has been widely recognized as a method to enhance critical thinking and reflection.
If you happen to handwrite your knowledge-building notes, as do many keepers of commonplace books, even better.
A recent study suggests that handwriting (as opposed to typing) can help us learn “surprisingly faster and significantly better.”
There are sound scientific reasons for this, but the late Joan Didion, writer and journalist, put it best:
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”
Cheers to that, Joan. And cheers to writing: The magic that happens when abstract thoughts become literal words on a tangible page.
Over to you
- Keep a journal in which you handwrite one new learning per day. It could be themed (music, psych, science) or assorted (a random fact, an interesting word, the reason why stink bugs smell like cilantro).
- Alternatively, pick a topic you feel strongly about and journal your answers to questions like these: What is true? How do I know? Why might another perspective also be valid?
3) Creativity
Writer’s. Block.
Arghh.
Why? And what can we do?
Blocking, researchers say, can stem from factors including stress, anxiety, perfectionism, and rigid thinking. It may seem oxymoronic, but journaling can help us write.
Through a practice known as freewriting, we invite ourselves to journal in an open, exploratory, and nonjudgmental way.
Here is where we write with zero expectations of outcome. Here is where we turn off the editor and turn on the dreamer. Here is where we shift our red light into a green.
As explained by Dr. Vivian Wagner in Psychology Today,
“Creativity … happens in the open, liminal space where we don’t think we’re working. And freewriting is one of the best ways into that magical space.”
Greenlight . . .
- Set a timer for five minutes. Write whatever comes to mind and don’t stop writing until time’s up. Make a big beautiful mess. Sure, you can mine it for gems later on but don’t try to create them.
- If you’d like to try a more visual strategy, give clustering a try.
4) Mental Health & Wellness
In the words of psychology professor Art Markman,
“There is a straightforward and simple remedy for stress that few people take advantage of: keeping a journal.”
The claim is as bold as it is well-supported.
In an expansive meta-analysis, researchers discovered that journaling tends to have a positive, “statistically significant” impact on anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
In the case of depression, journaling offered the best results when maintained for over 30 days.
Per Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson,
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency.”
The two primary forms of journaling examined in the meta-analysis included expressive writing and gratitude journaling.
Give it a try
- Write about a challenging experience in an open and emotionally expressive way for 10 to 20 minutes.
- Keep it if you’d like, or toss it. As Markman suggests, the “active ingredient” here is the act of the writing itself.
5) Productivity & Goal Pursuit
We’ve all got goals; we’ve all got a finite amount of time. Why spend precious moments pushin’ pencils when we could be makin’ moves?
Because, ye fellow seekers of triumph, you are more likely to accomplish those big beautiful goals if you write them down.
In a study by Dr. Gail Matthews, people who wrote down their goals accomplished significantly more than those who only thought about them.
The effect was even stronger for participants who shared their action commitments and a weekly progress report with a friend.
Yes, that might take some time, but given the choice between a slow burn and a complete miss, I’ll take the former.
As comedian Lily Tomlin once quipped,
“For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.”
Your turn
- Share a current goal with a friend or other supportive person.
- Better yet, share it together with at least one action you can take to move it forward this week.
Parting thoughts
Maybe you’re closer to keeping the habit of keeping a journal than you think.
The propulsive fuel isn’t so much in all the numerous “whys” outlined above, but in discovering your own unique “whys” contained within.
To put pen to parchment can be a form of everyday magic—if not in the literal sense then certainly in the symbolic.
At a minimum, the art of journaling can inspire us to smile brighter, think deeper, stress less, and accomplish more.
Not too shabby for a day’s writing.
P.S. Turns out stink bugs smell like cilantro because they share a chemical compound.
🤗 Greetings! I’m Kyle, an essayist and professional speaker. For nearly a decade I’ve presented research-based insights to Fortune 100 organizations. I write about creativity and other mindful glimmers.
🌱 Let’s connect so we can grow our network together. You can find me on Medium, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
