Why Everyone Needs to Journal At Least Once

Naomi Tamene - January 22st, 2023

I used to journal a lot the past couple of years, but recently, it’s become a chore that I don’t look forward to or find much use in. I went from regularly journaling everyday to just once a week, and then once a month, if that. I’ve always heard that journaling is good for you, and that having diaries to look back on is so fun, but I’ve never felt any of that joy myself. So, am I really just wasting my time? What does journaling actually help you with?

Well, according to Hayley Phelan in a New York Times article, it helped her “purge some of [her] anxiety, leading to a better night’s sleep and more energy to accomplish the task.” After two years of journaling, she was able to divorce her husband after ten years of marriage, begin another relationship, restart her freelance writing career, move to Los Angeles, and enroll in an M.F.A. program. Now, that might seem a little unbelievable, but studies in 2013 and 2018 were able to conclude that online journaling for 12 weeks significantly helped people with anxiety disorders, and it helped people with depression too.

Here’s where the interesting part comes in though, the 2013 study looked at the differences between writing about emotional events compared to writing about non-emotional daily events in people with depression, and they found that writing about their daily events didn’t help them one bit. In contrast, writing about emotional events actually decreased depression symptoms. So, is that the secret? Writing about your emotions?

But, there’s also the matter of gratitude journals and aesthetic journaling. According to PsychCentral, “Research in 2021 suggests that making a conscious effort to practice gratitude can have a positive effect on mental health…”. Many people on social media also swear by bullet journals to help them track everything from the water they drink to the books they read to their future plans which I think can help depending on the person.

So which kind of journaling should you actually do? It seems like writing about your emotions is good for when you’re stressed, bullet journals can help if you want to plan your life out, gratitude journals seem like a good way to get into a positive mindset in a short amount of time, and writing about your daily events doesn’t help with much of anything. But if none of these types of journaling sound interesting to you, I don’t think writing about mundane things should be overlooked.

I recently went through one of my elementary school journals to inspire me to start journaling again, and my sixth grade self made me laugh out loud and remember random moments I had forgotten about. Even though some of my ideas were kind of questionable back then, I loved seeing how much I’ve changed and how I saw the world when I was younger. You never know when you are going to need to be reminded how far you’ve come from a rougher point in your life or when you’ll need to be reminded of how far you’ve strayed from the person you loved and wanted to be. You’re never going to be the same person you are now. Why not write down even the smallest, most measly details of your life for an older version of you to find and enjoy? To go back to and remember the little things.

Your journal entries don’t have to be long, and you don’t have to make it a lifelong habit for it to be beneficial. So maybe go grab a notebook and a pen and try it out. I know I will.

Dibdin, Emma. “The Mental Health Benefits of Journaling.” Psych Central, 31 Mar. 2022, https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-health-benefits-of-journaling.

Phelan, Hayley. “What’s All This About Journaling?” The New York Times, 25 Oct. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/style/journaling-benefits.html.