Summary

Journaling is a beneficial practice for mental and physical health, aiding in personal growth and emotional processing.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of journaling as a therapeutic tool, citing both personal experience and scientific research. The author shares their journey from a quiet child to an adult who uses journaling to navigate life's challenges. The act of writing down thoughts and feelings is linked to improved mental and physical well-being, including better mood, immune system function, blood pressure, liver function, and an increase in positive feelings and overall well-being. The article references studies by James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., and Susan Lutgendorf, Ph.D., to support the claim that journaling with a focus on understanding and learning from emotions can lead to significant health benefits.

Opinions

The author believes journaling has contributed to their personal growth and mental clarity.
Journaling is seen as a method for organizing thoughts and feelings, leading to greater self-awareness.
The author values the tactile experience of writing in a physical journal, which stimulates their imagination and sense of order.
The article suggests that journaling can serve as a form of self-therapy, potentially reducing the need for professional health services.
There is an emphasis on the need for both emotional expression and focused thought in journaling to gain its full benefits.
The author practices daily journaling, akin to Julia Cameron's "Morning Pages," as a routine for mental preparation and emotional release.

Why Journaling Is Important

Can journaling act as an antidepressant?

I have journal after journal. Stacks of them, every single page filled with accounts of my life from fourth grade all the way through to the present.

I didn’t talk much as a child. In fact, in fourth grade, I was so close to being speechless, my parents took me out of my large public school because my teachers kept telling them, “She is lovely. But she doesn’t talk.”

Actually, now that I am working through this on paper, I don’t talk much as an adult. And that is what journaling does, it allows you to dig deeper, and find meaning in the experiences of your life.

I don’t know how I stumbled into journaling, but I’m glad I did. I believe I’m healthier, physically, and mentally, for it. And now, there is scientific evidence to support this claim.

The Center for Journal Therapy states,

“The simple act of expressing your thoughts and feelings about emotionally challenging experiences on paper is proven to speed your recovery and improve your mental and physical health. “

My love for writing, which started with journaling, was born out of my love for notebooks and desperately wanting my mom to buy me another one at our local stationary store.

Other children wanted to go to the five-cent candy store. Me, I wanted to go to the stationary store where they didn’t stock the same journal twice, and everything they sold supported my imagination and budding OCD.

There is something about the blank pages of a fresh notebook begging to be filled. The crackle of the binding when opened confirming you were the first to open it. The front of the journal — the hardcover — different from the last journal purchased, and if you were exceptionally fortunate, you came across a journal with some kind of positive quote inspiring you to write your best and fill up each page with your story.

“Can I get a new journal?” And my mom would always reply, “Did you fill the last one.”

So I wrote.

As I got older, especially in my twenties and thirties journaling served a more valuable purpose, to work out some hard stuff that happened to me during this period of my life. To work through the growing pains that inevitably accompany young adulthood.

Writing down troubling experiences allowed me to process them, reflect on situations, and increase my personal growth.

Journaling allows me to know myself better, and organize my thoughts and feelings on paper so I can understand them with more profound and greater clarity.

I was unknowingly making myself healthier by getting my complicated feelings about circumstances beyond my control out of my head and into my journal.

One of the first doctors to write a book on the positive emotional and physical side effects of journaling is James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., the Regents Centennial Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Pennebaker studied the effects journaling had on college students. This is what he found in his study.

“… college students wrote for 15 minutes on 4 consecutive days about ‘the most traumatic or upsetting experiences’ of their entire lives, while controls wrote about superficial topics (such as their room or their shoes). Participants who wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings reported significant benefits in both objectively assessed and self-reported physical health 4 months later, with less frequent visits to the health center and a trend towards fewer days missed due to illness.”

Here are just some of the health benefits from journaling in a conscious way:

Improved Mood
Writing benefits the immune system
Reduced Blood Pressure
Improved Liver Function
Increase in overall positive feelings
A feeling of higher well being

However, it is not just the purging of feelings onto the page that one needs to practice to benefit from journaling. According to health psychology researcher Susan Lutgendorf, Ph.D, of the University of Iowa, “You need focused thought as well as emotions,” says Lutgendorf.

“An individual needs to find meaning in a traumatic memory as well as to feel the related emotions to reap positive benefits from the writing exercise.”

To fully benefit from writing’s healing power, one must use it to better understand and learn from their emotions.

Not until I became an adult did I realize that those stacks of journals I’d been filling to express my deepest thoughts were adding to my personal growth, helping me organize my feelings, and enriching my life.

Journaling just made me feel lighter. It helped me release what my mind and body were holding onto.

Today, I still have a daily journaling habit, kind of like Morning Pages. I write for 30 minutes to an hour each morning, uninterrupted, if possible. I don’t worry about spelling or grammar. I sit and write. I try to do this as close to waking as possible, I find the words pour out of me.

This allows me to start my day on a high note. I feel like a clean slate going forward, able to conquer anything.

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Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.