3 Ways You Can Use Your Journal To Soothe Anxiety

Journaling is a great way to get your thoughts out of your head and onto the page. For some people, it’s also a way to process painful events and combat everyday stress and anxiety.

You might journal to work through negative thoughts and rewire your brain, you might use it as a form of meditation, or you might find that writing about current thoughts and feelings helps you feel better in the moment.

Regardless of why you turn to journaling, here are a few ways journaling can make a difference.

It helps you work through negative thoughts

Journaling can help you work through negative thoughts because it forces you to confront them. You might think that something isn’t right, but what’s really bothering you might become more apparent when you’re journaling and writing down your thoughts as they come to you.

Through the process of journaling, you might identify an underlying fear or insecurity that you never clearly articulated before, which can help you address it.

It can be a form of meditation for some people

We all need a little time for ourselves. Whether you’re feeling anxious, stressed out, or want to process some thoughts, journaling can be a great way to get that time.

Many people consider journaling a form of meditation. It’s one way to take care of your mental health without having to leave the house or make any special effort.

The fact is, though it might not feel like you’re doing anything extraordinary when you sit with your thoughts and pen them on the page, it can still do you a lot of good.

For others, it’s about processing difficult events from the past

Journaling might be just the thing to help you work through tough things that happened that may still be haunting you and preventing you from thriving in everyday life.

Researchers found that even brief bouts of journaling about emotional upheavals can have significant therapeutic benefits, like reduced stress levels, anxiety, and depression.

When people write about their deepest thoughts and feelings, they often experience catharsis or psychological release. The pressure gets let out of the mental container, and your brain will feel less burdened.

Conclusion

Journaling can be a powerful tool when you don’t know what to do with your emotions. Stress and anxiety are not just uncomfortable – they can be debilitating.

Trying to cope with stress and anxiety is hard, and there are so many ways to try to do it that it’s also hard to know what will work for you. If you’re feeling burdened for whatever reason, writing can help unburden your brain so you can move forward.

This article was written by Crystal Mathews and first appeared on Medium.