Benefits of Journaling for Depression

As a young child or teenager, you may have kept a diary to confess your hardships and heartbreaks. It gave you a space to be open with your feelings without the fear of judgment. Releasing those feelings through your pen and into your diary would take the weight of the world off your shoulders. 

But now, as adults, we call it journaling. And it has the same benefits. Writing down your feelings to better understand them can be unbelievably helpful.

Here are some benefits of journaling:

• Self-expression – You have a lot of emotions inside of you, and expressing yourself on paper can help to relieve that overwhelming feeling.

   

• Anxiety management – Tracking your anxiety symptoms day-to-day can help you recognize triggers and the ways to control them.

   

• Stress reduction – Journaling will help you to prioritize your problems, fears and concerns, thus helping you identify your main stressors and finding ways to handle them.

   

• Cope with depression – Your thoughts can slam against the walls of your mind. Getting them down onto the paper allows you to analyze those thoughts and identify problem areas and solutions, instead of allowing them to bottle up and weigh you down. 

Journaling allows you to look at your thoughts from a different perspective. Since it’s an aspect of a healthy lifestyle for your mind, you should consider adding other healthy activities to your to-do list, such as meditation, maintaining a balanced diet, getting plenty of rest and steering clear of substances like alcohol and other drugs. 

If you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, stress or just feel like arranging your thoughts, get yourself a journal. Write every day. Make it easy. There are no guidelines. It’s just you, your pen and a piece of paper. 

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