Gratefulness & Journaling

Journaling, or the act of writing down one's thoughts and feelings, has been shown to have positive effects on mental health, stress, and anxiety. Differing from diary writing, a person can journal at any time, for any reason. When keeping a diary, a person writes down what happens to them on a daily basis. A journal is used as an emotional outliet: sharing events, emotions and opinions only whenever the person finds it necessary. It is often used when working with psychologists, if only to track the emotions the client experiences outside of the sessions. Additionally, when at the end of the mental health journey, it can be inspiring to look back and see how far you've come.

Traditionally, journals are paper books, but online documents, or audio recordings function just as beautifully in the purpose of recording emotions and experiences. However, physically writing down emotions is known to be very helpful in releasing negative feelings, especially as it is like a visual representation of your troubles leaving your body and mind.

Gratefulness Journaling

Gratefulness journalling is the practice of writing down all the good things in your life. Essentially, every time something happens that makes you feel happy, lucky, or thankful that you are alive, you later record it in your journal. Gratefulness journalling is a very popular practice in 'Positive Psychology' - which studies social and mental wellbeing, as well as what makes life worth living. Gratefulness journalling helps you shift your mindset towards the positive things in your life, therefore helping you create a more positive worldview. Gratefulness journalling can be as simple as recording three things every day, that make you feel grateful.

Dream Journal

Dream journalling has multiple meanings. One definition of a dream journal is that of noting down what you can recall from your dreams when you wake up. This process can be used to help induce lucid dreaming. Additionally, trained professionals can use this kind of dream journal to get a deeper understanding of what may be happening in a persons psyche. Another definition of a dream journal is that where you record your goals: what they look like and how to get there. This can help you become motivated to reach your goals, as well as give you a 'rock' - something to keep you moving amidst troubling times.

Reflective Journaling

Reflective journalling is exactly how it sounds: a place to reflect on your life and experiences. When reflective journalling, a person looks back on their experiences, actions, reactions, feelings and goals. This process can help the journaller to get to know themselves better, and understand what they like about themselves, and what they want to change. Additionally, this type of journalling is helpful to be able to identify patterns in behaviour. As such, reflective journalling helps people to get in touch with themselves, and who they are at their core. This helps to prevent people from feeling overwhelmed with their lives, as well as themselves as a person.

Resources

Journaling Template - Free Use

Results: Does It Work?

Freya:

Personally, I think journaling does have an impact. Journaling is very fickle in my own experience, working best for 'loud' emotions such as rage or injustice. However, for emotions such as anxiety, which is a lot more subtle, journaling can still have an impact. I find that it is helpful to be able to get your fears and burdens written out in front of you - it helps you to clarify your thought process and identify the inconsistencies in your ideas. Additionally, when you move on to writing down the good things in your life, you remember that there is a lot more to life than that one thing weighing you down, and you have a lot more to live for and look forward to. As such, I recommend journaling for strong and overwhelming feelings.

Danielle:

My personal opinion is that journalling does work but only to an extent. I think that journaling is very, very helpful for those who are struggling with issues in their life (big or small) but it might be a bit confrontaional if the wound is too fresh. What I mean by this is, if you are not ready to face what has recently happened thats you a going to be journaling about, then I wouldnt recomened it. Howvere, for my personal experinece

Anonymous Data Results

Anxiety before Anxiety during Anxiety after

Person 1: 30 20 20

Person 2: 74 60 40

Person 3: 60 20 40

Person 4: 60 40 40

Person 5: 44 27 30

ANXIETY SCALE IS TO THE RIGHT

Averaged results show the average anxiety results show a level of 54 before music meditation, which decreases to 33 during the meditation, and has a slight rise to 36 after meditation.

These results suggests that after completing musical meditation, an individual should experience up to a 66.67% decrease in their anxiety levels.

Please note that the anonymous data results only contain a section of research conducted. The results have been based off that section of research. Additionally, journalling has recorded two occasions where anxiety has increased while journalling, only to substantially decrease below initial levels after completing the excercise. This is an outlier, and so has not been recorded as a standard data result, but it is important to note that if you do begin to feel that journalling is not effective for you, you are not alone, and you should move on to a different coping mechanism.