1. It’s an opportunity for reflection
Journaling is a useful tool for reflecting on your day and your experiences. Whenever I feel uncertain about anything, journaling helps me reflect on it so that I can be better equipped to handle it and move forward. Journaling helps you to work through your mistakes and your successes to know how better to deal with experiences and future situations.
2. Studies show it can help cope with stress
I don’t have to tell you that college is ridiculously stressful. We’re all trying to balance class, studying, socializing, working, and a hundred other obligations at the same time and it sucks. Journaling can help you manage all that stress. Studies show that writing improves our ability to cope with stress. It’s a small commitment with huge benefits for our mental health, so why not take fifteen minutes to yourself to scribble your worries away?
3. It helps make plans
A journal is an excellent platform for making plans and figuring out what steps will make that plan a reality. The best part of writing down your plans privately is that you can modify them at any time, and full discretion in following through with whatever you decide. Either way, journals can help you organize your life to make plans for tomorrow, next week, next month, or years from now.
4. Allows you to document memories
You know those moments in life where you look over at your friend and say that you’re going to remember this night forever? Yeah, well, chances are…you’re not. So write it down! Capture the moments that made you cry laughing and smile wider than you thought possible by writing them down in a journal. Your first day of college, your last day of college, the best date you’ve been on, and even the worst — all of these moments deserve to be remembered, and that’s best accomplished by jotting them down in a journal. Writing them down means you’ll have them to look back on for life. Those moments are far too precious to flush down the memory hole.
5. It improves your writing
No matter the activity, practice makes perfect. This certainly holds true with writing. Journaling provides a judgment-free zone to work on your writing and formulate your own style. You can get creative or keep it simple. No matter what you choose, your writing will always be improving.
6. It provides clarity
I’m a firm believer in using writing to clarify my thoughts. It’s hard for me to fully know what I mean or how I feel without writing my way through it. Journaling gives you the opportunity to clarify your opinions, beliefs and feelings. It’s the perfect opportunity to privately work your way towards clearer answers about what you think and how you feel. Ultimately, journaling can you help clarify pieces of yourself that were only murky beforehand.