How daily journaling will change your life
There are some unique benefits to choosing daily journaling as opposed to only writing in it when you feel like you need some quick therapy.
By journaling every day, you can choose between doing it in the morning, to define what you want to do during that day. Or you can leave for the end of the day and write about how was it, what happened and how you feel about it.
Benefits of Having a Daily Journal
Here are some of the top benefits of having a daily journal.
You Learn More About Yourself
You gain a lot of clarity and self-reflection. It is often difficult to understand your own motivations, what makes you unique, and what drives you on a daily basis. This is because your head is filled with so many thoughts and feelings all the time, that you might not take a minute to sit down and reflect on where your thoughts are coming from or motivate them.
Journaling can do this for you. You are sitting down with your journal for a few minutes every day, and focusing on you only. You can reflect on your day, talk about what you are feeling, or what may have caused some frustration.
It Helps with Anxiety and Stress
Everyone has at least a little stress in their life, and many people struggle with anxiety, even without realizing it. If you have stress, anxiety, or depression, you can get a lot of mental health benefits by using your journal daily.
While you can definitely just pick and choose when to use the journal, you benefit the most by writing in it every day. This allows you to understand what your triggers are, figure out why you are having panic and when, and even discover catalysts for your depressive episodes.
This is not only beneficial right now, but later down the road when you are trying to narrow down your stress or anxiety triggers so that you can reduce them and have a more peaceful life.
It Gives You a Place to Vent and Express Gratitude
This is important because journaling isn’t just about venting or expressing you negative emotions, but it might not just be about being positive either. Daily journaling should express everything about you, the good and the bad, the positive and the negative.
It is this balance and being honest with yourself that will allow it to help heal you, provide you with more clarity, and bring you more happiness and fulfillment.
Journaling Expresses Your Creativity
An added benefit to writing in a journal on a regular basis is that it really helps you to harness your creativity. You begin exploring creative writing just by journaling, often because you have not done this type of writing before, or at least not regularly.
Along with what happens when you write, you might also experience more creative sparks when you make drawings or sketches on various pages of your journal. This is a great way to create imagery that describes your thoughts or feelings, without needing to find the right words.
You Can Create a Daily Routine
Using a journal every day also helps you to start a new daily routine. Not just with journaling, but with other daily activities as well. Use this as an opportunity to have a simple self-care routine, where for at least a few minutes a day, you don’t have to worry about anything or anyone else.
You can choose any time of the day you want, depending on your schedule and when you are able to get some time alone. You can also add other things to your routine, such as meditating, practicing mindfulness or writing in a daily planner.
You Have Memories to Preserve
Journaling each day also gives you memories you are able to preserve. Over time, you might forget certain things, like what you said on a particular day, or the last thing you said to a friend before you parted ways.
So many things seem insignificant in your life now, but later in life, you might want to revisit what happened. This is when keeping a daily journal is helpful. You have everything right there, as long as you are recording memorable events that take place.
Ways to Use a Journal Every Day
Not only will you experience a lot of benefits to journaling every day, but there is a lot of room for customizing the entire process. There are many ways to journal every day, from creating a routine, to the actual type of journal you have and what you decide to write about.
Take a look at all of these options for journaling every day:
- To start with your daily journaling routine, just write about your day. Knowing WHAT to write about is often where people get intimidated. Remember that there are no rules here. Your journal is whatever you want it to be. However, if you are struggling with where to start, just write in your journal as you would a diary.
- When writing about your day, consider what you have planned for today (writing in the morning) or what you accomplished (writing in the evening). Did you do anything fun? Did you visit a friend? Did you have any difficulties? Did you learn something new? What are you thinking or feeling?
These can all be included in the journal entry.
Record Triggers
You may also want to use your journal to improve your mental or physical health. Many health conditions have triggers, which are situations, foods, or products that might trigger a flare-up or episode of that condition.
A journal is a wonderful tool for recording what you were doing before the flare-up so that you can look back and see what the common triggers were.
This works for all types of conditions, like anxiety or panic attacks, stress, emotional breakdowns, depression, allergies, and autoimmune disorders like Crohn’s disease or fibromyalgia.
Incorporate Mindfulness
You can also incorporate mindfulness and meditation into your journaling routine. Take a few minutes before writing in your journal to meditate, and think of what you are experiencing right now at this moment. Don’t worry about the past or future, just how you think or feel right now. Acknowledge those thoughts, accept them, then write about them in your journal.
This is going to allow you to get into a positive headspace, and learn how to be more mindful in your everyday life. The act of writing it in your journal further helps you to accept it, then move on.
Recording Memories and Moments with Your Journal
Now for the fun part – use your journal to record memories and moments! This is by far one of the best things about using a daily journal. It happens organically, without you have to do anything extra. Even just regular journaling about your day, what you’re going through, or events you attend will become memories that you can preserve.
Be Detailed in Your Journal Entries
If you really want to use your journals as memory books that you can preserve and look back on, the best thing you can do is include as many details as possible. Every time you write a journal entry, even if it’s just explaining something that happened or describing someone new that you met, put as many details about the situation as possible.
When you look back on it later, these details will allow you to transport yourself back to that moment, which is amazing when you just want to bring up old memories you haven’t thought about in a while.
Always Include a Date and Time
Another really important thing to keep in mind is that you want to know exactly when certain things happened. As you are adding more details to your journal entries, don’t forget dates! Always include a date when you are starting a journal entry, and if anything important happened, try to include time as well. You would be surprised how often this comes up when you’re trying to remember something that happened in the past.
Save the Journals for Reference
As you begin filling up journals, file them away in a way that makes it easy to find things later. At the very least, write on the front or binding of the journal what dates the pages in that journal include. If you are adding them to a bookshelf, put them in order from the oldest dates to the newest dates. This will make it a lot easier for you to reference later.
