Her Campus at U Ottawa acknowledges that we are located on the stolen and unsurrendered land of the Algonquin people.
With finals around the corner, my stress levels are high. And in the past few months, I have become obsessed with journalling whenever I feel stressed. This was a hobby that had been recommended to me in the past. However, I was never thoroughly convinced that journalling could be effective for de-stressing. So today, I’m here to go through my personal experience with journalling and the science behind it!
The Science
As a science nerd, I had to go to Google Scholar and prove to myself that this whole journalling thing had some evidence behind it, and it does! Studies suggest that people who frequently engaged in positive journalling saw remarkable decreases in anxiety, depression, and greater resilience after one month. Journalling has also proven highly effective for diminishing school-based stress and caused students to enjoy studying more than baseline measures (imagine enjoying studying… I didn’t believe it either). It’s important to note that both of these studies emphasize positive journalling, meaning not using the journal as a new method to bring oneself down, but reflecting on your current mood and attempting to pick out positive pieces from your writing instead. So, if you were a skeptic like me, maybe science has convinced you to give journalling a try.
*See my resources at the end of this article!*
My Personal Experience
After looking into the research, I decided to try out journalling myself. I began journalling over the holiday break in December 2021 and decided to pick up the journal whenever I started to feel down or anxious about a current situation. Currently, due to school and other commitments, I try to journal at least once per day (or whenever feels best for me). I have found over the past few months, there have been major improvements. Journalling has allowed me to get my emotions and feelings out on the page and put aside that feeling of impending doom for just a few moments. This allows me to be much more productive and feel better about myself throughout the day. As someone who suffers from diagnosed anxiety, I have also found that journalling has drastically increased my overall mental health.
While I’ll caution that journalling cannot fix or replace professional help for certain mental health needs, it has proven its ability to help me in my own mental health journey.