The benefits of journaling

• Bullet journal: Focusing on bulleted lists is a great method to use for personal organization and tracking progress. Use this journal to make to-do lists, brainstorm about projects, and record goals.
• Transfer journal: Write down concepts or information that you are learning in class and explore how you could draw on these (“transfer” them) in the future.
• 5 Ws journal: When you’re learning new information, or even trying to understand a real-life situation you’re in, it can be helpful to break the information down by the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, why). This can help you organize the information and even commit it to memory. 
• Gratitude journal: Being a student can be stressful at times. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s good to remember what you’re grateful for.

• Double-entry journal: Write down a concept or phrase on the left-hand side of a notebook page and record your thoughts about or reactions to that idea on the right-hand side.
• Question journal: Record questions you have about class material or internal questions that you hope to answer about yourself. Return to these pages as you explore and discover answers. 
• Reading journal: Keep notes about your readings for class or about books you’re reading for pleasure. Write down ideas that stick out to you and information you want to remember. Writing down your thoughts and perspectives can help you remember what you read so that you can draw on this information in the future.
• Idea journal: Use your journal as a place to “brain dump. ” Write down whatever you’re thinking or feeling so that you can better process your thoughts and emotions. Letting the words out in a stream-of-consciousness flow can help clear your head.

Check out the visual below to find more types of journals, as well as prompts to help you get started.

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5 reasons to start keeping a personal diary

This text was written in the Community, it retains the author's style and spelling.

Polina Chernova

Author profile

How journaling affects our thinking and stress levels. Where to start and what format is best for this?

An evening, a stack of textbooks, unfinished math homework, and a personal diary that seems much more important at this moment than schoolwork—so many emotions and thoughts need to be written out!

Many of us kept diaries as teenagers. What if we revive this habit? Contrary to stereotypes, diaries are kept not only by teenagers, but also by adults, mature people. Someone was offered to lead by a psychologist, someone started doing it on their own initiative.

Why journaling is useful

This is a safe space for you to physically express your thoughts. We do not always manage to share our innermost things with loved ones: someone is not around and busy with other things, someone may not understand us, but we want to leave something only for ourselves. A diary is that personal and intimate space where we can be free in wording, are not afraid to be misunderstood and write whatever we think is necessary.

It helps to structure our thoughts. When it seems that there is a mess in the head and one thought is ahead of another, writing practices help to write down everything that haunts. So we can clearly see what exactly worries us and what feelings overwhelm us. Our brain is no longer so loaded, and what is written provides new food for thought.

This is how we live emotions better. Sometimes we don't have the courage to admit to ourselves how we feel. Maybe this is disappointment in a loved one, anxiety for one's own future, or broken hopes. Keeping a diary and writing down everything important that happens to us, it will be difficult to avoid the truth. By voicing our emotions, it is easier for us to deal with them. In this way, we allow and allow ourselves to feel them, and then analyze where they come from and how we can work with them.

All this applies to both negative and positive emotions. Scientists have proven that by “training” to see positive moments, we accustom the brain to such thinking. Noticing in the diary all the good things that happened to us during the day, we begin to pay more attention to the pleasant little things in life, thereby living positive emotions more fully and brighter.

We learn to formulate and "voice" our thoughts and desires. Regular journaling develops an important skill in us: to be able to listen to ourselves, our feelings, psychological and bodily signals. We not only notice them, but also begin to embody them in reality.

A more complete picture of life is being formed. You can clearly see what life consists of in this period, in which areas we have succeeded, and in which, on the contrary, we have let go of control and given weakness.

Together, all this gives tangible results. Stress levels are reduced and the mind becomes clearer. By noticing successfully completed tasks and summing up the results of the work done, in a month you can conditionally get rid of the feeling that “not enough” is being done and understand that in fact we are great fellows. This helps build healthy self-esteem.

How to keep a diary correctly

I would recommend making this practice a regular practice, and when choosing a format, focus on your own feelings: try to imagine what these entries would ideally look like for you? What seems to be the most important? Consistency and regularity will make this practice more effective. It is best to keep a diary in the evenings. So you can capture the results of the day and analyze them without missing anything.

At first, it may be unusual to expose your feelings on paper, but over time it will become easier and it will become a pleasant routine. Try starting with the following questions:

• “What was your mood during the day today?”;
• "What influenced him?";
• "How do I feel now?";
• "What good happened today?";
• "What things have been done today?";
• "Is there anything that worries me at the moment?"

You can identify other issues for yourself that will be meaningful to you. On the Internet, you can also find diaries that are created specifically for writing practices. They are divided into thematic spreads with questions already prepared to make it easier for you.

Go beyond paper. You can take notes both on your phone and on your laptop. Or you can create a blog. Choose the format that you like. The main thing is your comfort.

Conclusions

Journaling can become an enjoyable part of your daily routine. But if this practice does not suit you, do not be discouraged - this is absolutely normal. Be sensitive to yourself and your desires!

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Why journaling is good for your health

April 2, 2016 Inspiration

Keeping a diary can significantly improve your well-being: sleep and blood pressure normalize, the immune system begins to function better, even wounds heal faster. And if you have long wanted to start a personal diary, but did not know where to start, in this article you will find 8 useful recommendations.

Michael Grothaus

Writer, freelance journalist. Founder and CEO of SITU Scale.

I have been keeping a personal diary for many years. Twelve, to be exact. When I tell people that I keep a diary, some people start to think that these are some notes related to work. Others imagine a teenage version in the spirit: “Dear diary! Now I feel…” And that’s it.

When I first started to keep a diary, the first page was a real torment. But today, journaling is one of my favorite parts of my day: writing down my thoughts makes me feel better both physically and mentally.

Surprisingly, improving your well-being by keeping a diary is not just psychosomatic. This work really improves the health of those involved in it. According to Dr. James Pennebaker, a psychologist and a leading expert in expressive writing, journaling strengthens immune cells, the T-lymphocytes. Thanks to this, mood improves, social activity increases. It also has a beneficial effect on the quality of close relationships.

Most of the research on expressive writing is done with measures of physical health to track changes. As a result of numerous scientific experiments, it became known that thanks to keeping a diary, the immune system begins to function better, blood pressure normalizes, sleep improves, and stress decreases. After a few months of keeping a diary, people begin to visit doctors less frequently. In other studies, this activity has been found to promote faster wound healing and greater mobility among people with arthritis. And this list goes on.

So what is journaling? It is a combination of fact-based personal reporting with an exploration of one's inner experiences, sometimes irrational, but always important.

There are weeks when I write every day, and sometimes I don't write a single word for a whole month. The point of keeping a diary is not only to organize your thoughts, but you can just think them over carefully, and this will also bring certain benefits. When keeping a diary, it is the act of writing down thoughts that brings the greatest result.

When you take notes, the left, rational hemisphere of your brain is at work. While it is busy, the right hemisphere can do what it does best: create, anticipate, and feel. Keeping a diary removes all psychological blocks and allows you to use all the possibilities of our brain to better understand ourselves and the world around us.

Maud Purcell

psychotherapist, writing expert

Already intrigued? I think yes. But maybe you're like me 12 years ago when I didn't know where to start. Therefore, I offer the following 8 tips that will help you master the art of journaling in the shortest possible time.

1. Use pen and paper

The modern world is all about keyboards and touch screens. But when it comes to journaling, there are more advantages to a regular pen and paper.

I have noticed that most of my patients intuitively understand that writing thoughts by hand is more effective than using the keyboard. And research confirms this. It turns out that while writing, the reticular activating system is stimulated - that area of ​​​​the brain that filters and brings to the fore the information on which we focus.

Maud Purcell

Handwriting has additional benefits. This keeps us from editing our own thoughts. Although many people in their 20s and 30s have already lost the muscle memory of handwriting and this activity may seem slow and uncomfortable to you, it will not be long before you again feel comfortable writing by hand.

When I can convince young people, especially 20 year olds, to take good old cursive notes, they are always amazed at the result, because this activity is really calming and helps to cope with problems.

Mod Purcell

2. If you don't like writing with a pen, find the right tool for you. There is nothing wrong with this.

Fortunately, today there is a huge variety of options. Personally, I prefer freehand journaling using a V5 Hi-Techpoint pen with a very thin refill. Yes, only this particular option. I think it's the perfect tool to help my thoughts flow from my head to the pages of my Moleskine notebook.

But if paper and pen are not for you, look to their technological counterparts. Both standard editors (Word from Microsoft or Pages from Apple) and more minimalistic solutions like Ommwriter will do. Perhaps you prefer touch screens. In general, look for the most convenient solution for yourself.

3. Set a reasonable limit for yourself

People used to set themselves a writing limit, like 3 pages every day. But experts agree that a time limit would be a more effective solution when keeping a diary.

Think rationally about how much time per day you can devote to this activity in your busy schedule. Even if it's only 5 minutes at first.

The time limit helps people focus on a specific goal when they start journaling. Seeing 3 blank pages in front of you can be difficult, and the case will end before it even starts. And the time limit will not seem like a difficult test.

Pennebaker recommends writing 15 to 20 minutes a day. The only rule is to do it all the time.

4. You don't have to be Shakespeare

Most aspiring writers (regardless of whether they write diary entries, an article for a popular magazine, or a long novel) tend to make the mistake of believing that everything they write must be deep and sensual. And when you start journaling with this delusion, be sure that it will lead to failure. Such activity is directed outward, to others, and you should keep a diary for yourself personally. Genuine depth comes naturally, by itself, even by accident. Pretentiousness occurs when people deliberately try to appear smarter.

Shakespeare was a great writer because of his natural talent and careful study of human nature. But what's good for him doesn't have to be good for you. You do not need to demonstrate your literary talent. You just need to write.

I advise my patients to forget about spelling, punctuation and just pour their stream of consciousness onto paper. So keeping a diary will help bring to the fore information that is stored a little deeper than consciousness. Let her pour out.

Maud Purcell

5. Don't edit

One of the purposes of journaling is to explore areas of your mind that you may not want to let out. Diary entries are not articles. No one will check your spelling, grammar, punctuation or content structure. When you edit, you start to think and focus on the presentation rather than your thoughts.

The essence of keeping a diary is to write without thinking. By thinking, we interfere with our intuition, and, consequently, the whole meaning of the diary is lost. The diary can help us explore those paths that we cannot consciously discover. We can find extremely interesting topics if we stop thinking for a while.

6. Journal in the same place every day

You don't have to lock yourself in a secluded ivory tower to write down your thoughts. However, if you have a specific place where you will keep a personal diary, this will help to create better introspective notes.

I have a favorite café in London where I enjoy writing. Even when it gets noisy from the clinking of cups and talking patrons, I find the background noise soothing. He helps me immediately tune in to the right mood, and I plunge into my diary. If cafes aren't for you, try writing in a quiet room at home or on a park bench.

Make it an inviting place where it is cozy, where there are things that inspire you, where you can see, touch or smell them: flowers, sentimental photographs, memorabilia or pleasant drinks - your choice.

Mod Purcell

7. Leave room for content

When I buy a new Moleskine, I always skip the first two or three pages before starting the diary. When I fill out the entire notebook (usually for a year), I wait for a while, and then reread it.

When re-reading, I highlight notes or thoughts that I think are important, note page numbers or the date of writing, and then put them at the very beginning of the diary. This gradually builds up the content, thanks to which I can easily find important records. It helps me a lot when I'm in trouble. I can see how I have faced problems in the past that seemed insurmountable to me, but which I was eventually able to overcome.

Experts do not agree on whether a table of contents is needed in the diary or not.

“Some people like structure, some people don't,” says Pennebaker. Some people like to read what they have written, some don't. The point is to find the way that works for you."

Purcell has a different point of view: “I like this idea. Of course, some parts of the diary will seem more relevant to your life as a whole. And quick access to these notes will be useful, especially in confusing or stressful moments in life. It's great to be able to remind yourself how you've dealt with seemingly hopeless situations in the past."

8. Keep your diary away from prying eyes

Find a safe and secure place for your diary. For this activity to be really effective, you need to feel as free as possible and write down things that you can’t even tell your best friend.

A personal diary is not a letter to another person. It is not a document by which others should judge you. Do you want to write a book? Fine. Write a book. The diary is just for you. If what you write might hurt the feelings of others or damage your reputation, destroy the diary or hide it in a safe place.

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