Three Most Influential Benefits of Journaling for Me

Are you one of those people who commit to journaling? Wait, what exactly is journaling? Journaling can simply be defined as an activity of writing in our diary or journal. Journaling can help people in many aspects, one of which is our mental health. A research article from the University of Rochester Medical Center mentioned that journaling could help people manage anxiety, reduce stress, and cope with depression. For me, there are three most noticeable benefits since I committed to journaling; reading my emotions, tracking my habits, and digesting new knowledge.

Journaling has helped me to read my emotions better. Putting what’s on my mind into words has significantly eased my effort to understand what I am feeling. We may understand others easily since we listen to them and try to comprehend the context. However, when it comes to understanding ourselves, we tend to find it more difficult (at least that’s what I feel). Thus, reading what I have written in my journal has made me understand my state much better. Through this process, we simplified the complexity of solving problems by putting the abstractness of our minds into words that we can read and comprehend.

 

Furthermore, journaling also can be a tool to track our habits. How? As journals have many types depending on their functions, in this matter I talk about a habit tracker type of journal. It does not necessarily mean that you have to afford a certain type of journal that is specifically created to track your habits only, you can just do it in one book. You can simply draw a table of dates, put a list of your habitual targets, and check it when you do it as you plan. Building habits is not an easy task, so do it slowly but surely. For instance, you can start with a simple habitual target - reading books for 10-15 minutes every morning before you start your day. After that, the next things to do are to check your journal and evaluate your performance. The evaluation process will help us to improve our next performance by focusing on the areas
that we are lacking.

 

In addition, journaling may also be the way to digest new knowledge more effectively. It is said that writing helps us to memorize something better, right? This is how journaling can also benefit us. In my experience, I love rewriting/summarizing important points from my reading. I find it very helpful to understand much better. Also, when I forget about it, I can simply reach for my books and read my summary. Well, basically it’s like a mini note that you can rely on every time you need it.

All in all, for the last 2 years committing to journaling, and writing daily at least about my day has given me so many great benefits. By now, I can confidently say that it makes me understand myself emotionally much better, it helps me to build new habits more effectively, and it’s been a loyal friend to digest and store new valuable knowledge I obtain. Thus, I really hope that it’s not only me having these beautiful benefits from journaling, but also all of you guys reading this humble writing of my own experience.