Journaling Made Me Happier and More Productive

Here’s why it might work for you too

The year 2020 was truly chaotic for me. I began my first full-time job, which obliged me to move interstate and out of home — also for the first time. I had no experience living in the city I would call home, so I signed onto a sublease with my future roommate. Due to the pandemic, we shared a home office, and work canceled development opportunities I had been anticipating. Desperate to see some improvement in my life, I took the fortunate step of buying my own apartment. Immediately afterward, I sued my roommate/landlord — it’s a long story.

During this time, I kept various journals for subjects such as my career, life admin, and personal goals. Things started getting oppressively uncomfortable in the second half of the year, so I began keeping a separate journal specifically for dealing with stress. In it, I record my major and minor stressors, why I find them stressful and what I’ll do to deal with them. I also write follow-up entries to remind myself what worked and what didn’t.

Especially with my stress journal, I found my writing helped me cope with the rollercoaster of emotions that was 2020. More than that, I’m thriving. I have a sense of hope when I look at the challenges ahead. Resting not only feels possible but also refreshing. I even get more done each day. No longer weighed down by relentless thoughts, I have energy left over from work to take care of my domestic life and advance my side projects.

Why has journaling had such a profound effect? From my reflection and research, there are three related yet distinct reasons.

1. Journaling reduces your mental load

The cartoonist Emma drew attention to the mental load in her cartoon You should’ve asked (original French: Fallait demander). She describes it as ‘always having to remember’. Mental load is the remembering, planning, and organizing of domestic life on top of paid work. It’s when you start to cook dinner before encountering dirty dishes in the sink and suddenly remembering you still need to call a plumber for the bathroom. And you only just got home from work.

Although You should have asked makes a broader point about the division of labor in the households of heterosexual couples, everyone has a personal mental load that sometimes feels like it won’t let up. As the sole breadwinner and homemaker of my household, I feel I always need to be ‘on’. Leah Ruppander has excellent suggestions for controlling the mental load, but living alone means options such as taking time off or delegating simply aren’t available.

This is where journaling comes in. I don’t necessarily write about all the errands I have to run, but committing thoughts to paper frees them from my mind. Even if all I write about is how terrible I am at chess, at least I’m not thinking about it five minutes later. If I do write about what I need to get done and how I’ll do it, it’s one less thing to think about. It’s like I’m telling my brain, ‘We’ve covered this already; you can rest now’.

The upshot is I get things done. I can tick items off my to-do list without that uneasy feeling of having missed something. If there’s something left undone, I either have the mental energy to do it immediately or the patience to be okay with doing it later.

2. Journaling promotes mindfulness

Mindfulness has various definitions, all related to being in the present moment. Some definitions emphasize awareness of our environment; others emphasize awareness of our thoughts and feelings. The benefits of mindfulness include increased enjoyment of life’s better moments, relief from stress, and improved mental health. These benefits are partially due to the effect of mindfulness in helping us accept our physical and emotional experiences without judgment.

Journaling provides an excellent mechanism for identifying, examining, and accepting emotions. It’s an opportunity to be present with difficult thoughts instead of shutting them down or leaping to the next thought. A consistent journaling practice can help draw out the benefits of mindfulness.

When I first wrote in my stress journal, I was dealing with some acutely unpleasant emotions. I lost sleep for days, and the physical and mental fallout forced me to confront my emotions head-on. I wrote about the source of my stress and how it felt in my body and mind. I wrote about the persistent fatigue, the deep fear of being alone, and the crushing sense of hopelessness.

I began to realize I was feeling normal human emotions, the same ones I dealt with in previous stressful times. Soon enough, I got my sleep back. Journaling hasn’t made me stress-proof, but now I have the confidence to deal with stress quickly and reliably.

3. Journaling helps prevent spiraling

Spiraling, or catastrophic thinking, occurs when a negative thought starts a cascade of doubts, worries, and insecurities. There may be an instinct at the bottom that the world is about to end, or an endless circle of ‘what ifs’ makes it feel like recovering normal thoughts is futile. Though associated with mental health conditions, spiraling can occur in moments of anxiety that everyone experiences.

There are plenty of ways to prevent spiraling. The Mayo Clinic recommends deep breathing, exercise, calming music, reminding yourself the anxiety will pass, and sitting with your thoughts without judgment. It also helps to examine your negative thoughts skeptically to see if you can replace them with more balanced, realistic thoughts.

Some of these strategies incorporate aspects of mindfulness, but I see an independent reason that journaling helps prevent spiraling. When I write down the sequence of spiraling thoughts, I know I’ve accounted for my worries. I’ve tricked my brain into letting me forget about every last thing that might go wrong because my journal is now a handy reference.

Nowadays, I’m excited about the future. I don’t have a plan for every outcome, and I don’t need one. Setbacks that used to ruin my day are manageable annoyances now. Journaling has made me more resilient, and it’s my victory to share with you.

Journaling for you

As a form of expressive writing, there is no one way to access the gains in happiness and productivity from journaling. Headspace has great suggestions, such as bullet journaling and having pre-written questions to answer. The scope of topics to journal about is similarly broad. You can write about plans for the future, specific challenges in life, or patterns you’ve noticed in your thoughts and feelings.

Personally, I keep a gratitude journal with each entry containing five things I’m grateful for. I also keep the aforementioned career and stress journals, where I write in long-form. They record my plans for the short to medium term, the emotions underlying them, and evaluations of how they went. I also have assorted notebooks and spreadsheets that serve as glorified to-do lists since I’m not writing essays for my life admin.

Journaling has undoubtedly improved my life. I get more done every day, and I feel like the future is worth planning for. My mind is clearer, my sleep more restful and my smile much wider.

Now you know why I journal and how I do it. Give it a try. It might just change your life.