blog-post-1 - Therapy with Maryann LMSW

Why You Should Start Journaling
(and How to Get Started)

Journaling is good for your mental health because it can help reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood and self-esteem, increase self-awareness and creativity, and even help those in recovery better process their thoughts and feelings.

How can journaling improve your mood? Writing can be an amazing outlet! Need to work through your feelings? Put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and let it all out. Maybe you need to release some frustration or gain perspective on something tough…writing is a therapeutic way to go. It’s also great for creativity, self-expression and helping yourself understand emotions.

Just getting those thoughts out of your head can make the world feel a little less overwhelming. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but stick with it and before you know it, writing down your feelings will be second nature!

How to Get Started

1. Set reasonable goals: Start by setting reasonable goals for how often you’ll write and how long each entry will be. Don’t aim to write an entry every day, aim to write twice a week, or every other day. You don’t need to write a lot, sometimes just listing off the different emotions you felt that day can be helpful.

2. Make it easy to access: Keep your journal easily accessible. Store your journal in the same place so you can always find it. You may find it more efficient to use your phone or laptop. This will help you stay engaged and make the entire process easier.

3. Collect memories: When you’re writing, focus on capturing the memories, feelings and experiences you had that day. This is especially important for days when nothing “significant” happened. Use your journal as a time capsule for peace of mind, and for your future self to look back on.

4. Sometimes, it’s tempting to end up writing the same ol’ thing in your journal every time. Shake it up a bit and keep things fresh! Go with the flow, change it up—take each day as it comes and jot down what you’re feeling or thinking right then and there. It’ll make for an awesome read when you scroll back through all your entries later on.