Journaling improves your mental and physical health: it is powerful and therapeutic! Journaling is making MAJOR comebacks, becoming extremely popular all over Pinterest boards and making headlines.
James Pennebaker, a psychologist emphasizes that journaling strengthens your “T-lymphocytes” immune cells. Pennebaker states that by writing about your stressors, it actually helps you come to terms with it and overall reduce the negative impacts on your physical health. College students – IT’S TIME TO START JOURNALING!
Elizabeth Broadbent, PhD, senior lecturer of psychological medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, says that journaling about trauma helps your body heal 4.4 times faster than it normally would. Personally, journaling lets me gain a more realistic perspective on life. I believe that once I journal and reflect on what happened and how I felt during my day, I am more likely to learn lessons from what I have gone through.
During an age of relying so much on technology, it’s sometimes important to put pen-to-paper, step back and actively engage with your thoughts and ideas. It enables you to connect with complicated ideas and concepts in times that are difficult to put in your own words.
There are so many scenarios of miscommunication and misunderstandings, journaling can actually improve this. Journaling aids communication skills through learning ways to better express yourself. The more self-aware you become, the more you can make yourself understood to others around you. It also makes talking about your emotions feel more natural!
Journaling also improves your memory. If you’re a student who writes down notes during lectures, you’ll know exactly what I mean. It’s proven that writing down notes enables you to retain the information better. Journaling helps me remember my goals and what I need to achieve, whether it is daily or weekly goals, writing them down makes me commit to it in writing. Writing your goals down helps you form a practical plan to achieve them, and helps you look back at your past failures as well as planning towards future successes.
Are there days where you feel like you have done absolutely nothing productive? Well, even if you write in your journal about a wasted day, it will most likely motivate you to spend your next day more wisely doing something productive.
Overall, journaling helps increase creativity, discover your voice and leaves a record for your future self. I started my own journal recently and these benefits have definitely shown within my mood. Journaling is supposed to be an activity that is self-motivating, a form of self-reflection and a time of honesty.
If you have never tried journaling or you do not know how to begin your own journal, click the here.