What does expressive writing and journaling allow for that is a crucial part of stress management?

Do you like to write?

If so, what kind of writing piques your interest? Is it the stability and structure of formal research in an academic paper? Or perhaps you enjoy the whimsical and unpredictable nature of poetry, or creative storytelling?

If you don’t enjoy writing, why not?

For many, writing simply feels overwhelming. It can be a tedious process to go from a blank page to a finished product. Trying to get the words just right is a major hurdle that blocks a lot of us from pursuing any form of writing beyond school assignments. (Especially if you are writing something you intend for others to read.)

What about journaling, though?

Journaling is one of the most freeing and cathartic activities you can do. It is the process of writing your thoughts and feelings, and it is an accessible and effective form of writing for everyone.

There are no rules when it comes to journaling, and no one has to see a single word that you write. Though, you can always choose to conform your journaling to conventional writing standards or share your reflections with others if you wish.

Perhaps even more compelling than the freedom journaling offers is its potential to powerfully and positively impact your mental health. In fact, several scientific studies have shown journaling to benefit your overall emotional well-being1. Certain types of journaling are associated with decreased mental distress – particularly in individuals with symptoms of depression and anxiety. 1

In this article, we provide an overview of the benefits of journaling on your mental health, including various types of journaling you may wish to pursue and how to get started.

8 Mental Health Benefits of Journaling

Mental health providers often use a multidisciplinary approach when developing a treatment plan for their clients. Clinicians may draw from more than one psychological theory to structure the healing work and incorporate a few different tools to help individuals reach their goals. Journaling is one such therapeutic tool.

Journaling for mental health means writing with intention to address the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors related to your emotional state and overall wellbeing.

When you regularly journal for mental health, you can:

1.   Organize Your Thoughts

Life gets busy for all of us. It takes focused, quiet time to clarify your thoughts and process your emotions in an honoring, productive way. If you are running from one activity or meeting to another from the moment you wake up until you hit the pillow at night, you may not have much emotional capacity to adapt to change or make wise decisions. Journaling can be the perfect antidote to this! Bring peace to your chaotic mind or demanding family life by journaling about the very things that are clouding your mind.

2.   Prioritize Your Problems

Journaling helps you look at your problems from a bird’s-eye view. It shifts the vantage point to allow you to see the whole picture. Whether you feel stuck with the problems you face or unsure of how to make decisions, journaling can help you prioritize what’s most important according to your values.

For example, if spending time with family is one of your highest personal values, journaling can help you recognize that you need to turn down a compelling but time-intensive project at work so that you can be home in time for dinner with your spouse and children every night.

3.   Release or Reframe Negative Thoughts

When you write, you are in control. You get to decide which words make it onto the page and you get to decide how much depth to go into when writing about a tough conversation or painful experience.

You are also in control of your thoughts! Journaling offers the freedom to write your negative thoughts in ‘full form’ (not holding anything back) and then release them or reframe them. When you move your negative inner dialogue from your head to the page, you may be surprised to read just how hurtful our own minds can be. You can choose to cross out the negative thoughts to release them or rewrite the thoughts with objective, truthful statements.

Here are two examples:

Negative Thought(s)

• Why am I so boring? I never have anything interesting to add to conversations with my coworkers. Everyone probably thinks I am an idiot. I should just be quiet.
• I’m fat and ugly. I will never look good in anything.

Reframed Thought(s)

• I know my colleagues appreciate that I am a good listener. Because I listen first, I almost always notice small details during important client meetings. My boss has noted how helpful this trait is more than once. It is OK if I am not the loud storyteller type.
• I am healthy and strong. My body has birthed three children and I regularly run half-marathons. I am proud of all that my body has done and is doing.

4.   Discover Patterns in Symptoms Over Time

Journaling helps you become more aware of your thought patterns and habits. If you struggle with an eating disorder, for example, journaling about your day can help you make connections between stressors and symptoms. Over time and with the help of a therapist, you may notice that you are more likely to have an episode of binging and purging on the days you see your ex-husband to drop off your children (for example). Identifying triggers and discovering patterns is an important part of treatment and recovery for several mental health conditions.

5.   Reduce or Eliminate Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety

Several studies have shown the effectiveness of journaling in treating symptoms of depression and anxiety.2 Journaling is associated with increased feelings of well-being and fewer depressive symptoms after just one month of practicing the discipline for 15 minutes per day, 3 times per week.3  

How?

Writing about an emotional event helps you stop thinking about it obsessively. You are free to be totally transparent with your emotions because you are not censoring your words or body language for anyone else. Greater emotional awareness also helps with emotional regulation.

Gratitude journaling is one specific way to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. Gratitude is about giving thanks. It’s about being intentional to name the things and people for which you are grateful, and it can be a really simple process.

Make a list of 3 things you feel grateful for each morning or evening. Or, spend 5 minutes free writing about one person you feel grateful to know, a new recipe you tried, or a piece of technology that makes your life more convenient. Practicing gratitude ushers in feelings of appreciation for the life that you have and helps detract you from focusing on the ways your life is not perfect.

6.   Relieve Stress

There are many reasons for stress to appear in our lives, and there are also many healthy ways to relieve stress. Journaling is one of them.

When you journal to relieve stress, start by naming the specific things that are causing you to feel overwhelmed. Write about them in depth and then work to identify coping strategies to hep you overcome the stress.

For example, let’s say you are feeling anxious about a very busy week ahead for your family. In fact, every week feels busy lately, and you now dread looking at your calendar. Your teenage daughter has afterschool practice 3 times per week and your middle school son with special needs has several appointments scattered throughout the week. On top of that, the leak from the upstairs bathroom is getting worse, and you have a huge proposal due by Friday to your boss. Yikes!

How can you relieve some of the stress that you feel?

Write down your commitments and appointments. Get clear on what’s a ‘must’ on the family and work calendar. If it’s not required, let it go.

Once you are clear on your schedule and obligations, brainstorm a list of people who might be able to help. Can your neighbor pick up your daughter and bring her home from practice this week? Perhaps your spouse can take over dinner prep and clean up duty for the 2-3 nights before your proposal is due.

As you spend time actively working out solutions to your stress, you will notice your nerves begin to calm as you see a light at the end of your busy tunnel. Tangible solutions = less stress.

In this example, it is also important to express your feelings about the week ahead and your busy season in general. Consider exploring through a free-write how you feel about your family rhythms. Is everyone too scheduled? Has work become too demanding? What are the trade-offs of decreasing afterschool commitments or work responsibilities?

This kind of writing will help you process the deeper emotions behind the stress that you feel next week and begin to envision a longer-term solution to your seemingly endless cycle of busyness.

7.   Boost Your Immune System

Journaling positively shapes your psychological and physical health. One type of journaling called expressive writing, or writing about emotionally significant experiences, has been shown to have several long-term physical health benefits. Writing in depth about traumatic or emotional experiences may result in short-term distress as you recall painful emotions associated with the traumatic or emotional experience, but ultimately leads to long-term improved immune functioning, reduced blood pressure, improved lung function and liver function, improved working memory, and fewer stress-related visits to the doctor.4

8.   Sleep Better

Sometimes, journaling is as simple as writing a to-do list for the day or week ahead. If you have difficulty falling asleep at night because you are worried you might forget something important, try writing your to-do list and setting it near your bedside. Voila! You can rest assured knowing you’ll be reminded of your important task in the morning.

You may also sleep better if you choose to engage in expressive writing. Tell your journal about the events of the day to process your thoughts, feelings, and actions. This kind of journaling is especially helpful for those who find it difficult to fall or stay asleep because they are turning over a conversation in their mind or replaying an event from the day. Journaling about it helps you process the experience slowly and in detail to get it out of your head and onto the paper.

How to Get Started with Journaling

Some of you already feel comfortable with the journaling process. You treasure your special time with your notebook and pen and your inner thoughts and feelings. If that’s you, great! Be encouraged that you are engaging in a healthy activity that has been clinically shown to help you organize your thoughts, regulate your emotions, and process your life experiences. Grab your favorite hot beverage and go forth with your writing.

Others of you may be intrigued by the mental health benefits that journaling promises but unsure how to get started. If this is you, don’t worry. It’s easy. (Really!) All you need is something to write with and something to write on.

To start journaling, decide whether you prefer to experiment with freestyle journaling or guided prompts.

Freestyle Journaling

Freestyle journaling (asks freewriting) journaling is a great place to start for anyone worried about the words coming together ‘just right.’ Freewriting might be for you if you find yourself starting and stopping sentences to reword things before any real progress is made. Try a steam-of-consciousness brain dump, which can look like:

• A bullet-point list of words or phrases related to your day, a past experience, a future goal, or an intense emotion
• Long, run-on sentences (it’s OK if it seems like jumbled nonsense – the point is to get words from your head onto the page)
• A combination of writing and doodling to connect the written word to visual images that represent how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking
• A few paragraphs about anything at all. The paragraphs can be as simple and straightforward as what you ate for breakfast, what you see when you look out your window, or how you feel about taking public transportation to work. Again, the point is to get started writing.

As you strengthen your writing muscles and build the habit of journaling, you may begin to explore writing prompts and exercises that probe more specifically into experiences and emotions tied to your mental health. For example, you might create a list of feelings surrounding a recent breakup, write a couple of paragraphs about recent tension with your spouse, or jot down questions for your interviewer next week.

Guided Journal Prompts

Guided journaling is the process of responding to questions intended to facilitate a specific writing experience. Prompts may steer you towards emotional expression, self-care, self-reflection, gratitude, planning, or other goals.

As you respond to these questions, remember that you do not have to share your answers with anyone. It is best to be fully honest with yourself as you write.

Your journaling may result in thoughtfully constructed paragraphs that appear ‘neat’ and ‘smart,’ or it may result in a handful of first-draft phrases related to a few keywords from the prompts. In other words, the point is not about how it looks at the end but the process of expressing your thoughts and feelings in an intentional way. (Spelling, grammar, style, and tone are not important.)

Here are a few sample prompts to help you get started:

• Describe the high and low of your day (or week).
• What brings you joy in this season of life?
• Write about one thing you would like to change about yourself.
• What scares you?
• Dear Future Self …
• Dear Past Self …
• What is one thing you feel worried about? How are you coping with this worry?
• Make a list of people who inspire you.
• Make a list of your positive habits.
• What is one goal you would like to achieve by this time next year?
• How are you a different person today compared to 5 years ago?

There are hundreds of other prompts from which you may choose. If you are working with a therapist, consider asking him or her for suggestions based on your therapeutic goals. Another option is to do a quick Google search. Perhaps, try searching “journaling prompts for depression” (or another condition) or “mental health journal prompts” – you will see several dozen lists and questions to help you get started.

In time, you will find a writing rhythm that works well for your personality, preferences, and therapeutic goals. You may find you wish to keep up the structure of guided prompts or you may enjoy freewriting on your own terms. Either way is OK!

Journaling-Assisted Group Therapy: The Advenium Approach

Here at Advenium, we offer a group therapy service model. One of our most popular groups is our journaling-assisted group therapy. Our facilitators use evidence-based psychological theory like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Trauma-Informed Therapy. Advenium uses these therapies to guide participants through emotionally safe, personal, and interactive journaling experiences. To learn more, email or give our office a call at (845) 697 – 0000. We’d love to speak with you to help you determine if an Advenium group is the right next step for you.

References

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6305886/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3759583/
3. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-health-benefits-of-journaling
4. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/emotional-and-physical-health-benefits-of-expressive-writing/ED2976A61F5DE56B46F07A1CE9EA9F9F