8 Ways Keeping A Journal Just Might Save Your Life

When you’re beginning to use your journal, it’s a good idea to write at around the same time each day, for instance with your morning coffee. In this way, expressing your thoughts becomes an automatic part of your daily actions. It also helps to date entries, so when you look back on them you’ll know what you were doing and how you were feeling at a particular time and place.

And by marking down whenever you try something new and decide to keep it going, your journal is an ongoing record of a changing, improving you.

After keeping a journal for a while, it’s enlightening to go back and identify patterns that are slowly emerging. Any pattern discovered can be either kept going if beneficial to your life, quickly curbed if detrimental, or explored at a deeper level.

Actions leading to good and bad eventualities will become even clearer in time, helping you to connect your past to your present to your future in a more meaningful way.

Keeping a journal helps you figure out how to open up and bring awareness into your life. Your journal is a place to vent your feelings, which is particularly inviting when going through a challenging time. It’s a safe place for you to express your emotions and start to process them, rather than keeping them inside.

Whenever you’re affected by change or a disruption to the normal way you do things, finding the time to write in your journal can be a vital step towards emotional expression.

When you repeatedly write what you’re experiencing and feeling, you’re gradually learning about yourself - what is important to you and why in an iterative way. Over time, writing about your challenges and dreams will help you understand yourself better and guide you on a path towards better choices.

Sharing your feelings with a journal isn’t just simple catharsis; it can improve your mood when you’re down. If you begin to notice when you feel a bit under the weather, you can put into motion simple activities to make yourself feel better, for example doing some exercise, seeing your friends or upping your water intake.

Sometimes it’s a just matter of getting things off your chest; you can tell your journal anything, it’s almost like having a mini-therapist with you at all times.

According to psychologists, the more in tune you are with your authentic self, the easier it can be to meet challenges as they emerge.

It’s all about trusting your intuition, however strange it may seem at the time. By doing so, you are helping your inner voice to emerge on the page. From the smallest seeds, great trees grow.

In our busy lives, it’s easy to forget we’re some of the luckiest people who have ever lived. By writing down all the things you’re most thankful for naturally brings about a positive, healthy state of mind.

Studies have shown that people who are the happiest are those who are the most grateful for the good things they have in their life. Plus it’s always beneficial to review your gratitude pages for a burst of inspiration when you’re feeling a little uninspired.

Keeping a journal helps you be present because it helps you listen to what your heart and soul are telling you. Being calmly mindful means you are living in the present, feeling a sense of connectedness between yourself and others, between the world and you. This increased awareness can give you a calm outlook that will, in time, benefit each part of your life.