Journaling is good for your mental health. Many mental health experts suggest that journaling helps to improve depression, anxiety and stress. Read on to learn how to journal for mental health.

Paper or computer? In this digital age, everyone stores everything online or in their digital gadgets. This means you can journal in apps, websites and offline programs like MS Word. This can help you to store your words online and access them at any time you wish.

However, you can also write things down on paper. This helps you to feel the authentic experience of writing your thoughts and feelings in your own words. Using journals and diaries also means you can add your personal touches such as drawings.

So, what do you write about in a journal for mental health? Your thoughts play a big role in mental health. Therefore, you need to track your moods, thoughts, feelings, experiences, mindsets, reactions, affirmations, circumstances and anything you would like to process.

In this article, I will be delving into how to journal for mental health. This includes the benefits of journaling for mental health, how to journal for mental health and my favorite journal prompts.

Benefits of Journaling for Mental Health

Before we get into how to journal for mental health, let’s delve into the benefits you can reap from journaling for mental health:

1 | Journaling helps you control the narrative

People with poor mental health tend to be impressionable and gullible. You put less stock in your own opinions than other’s. You believe what other people tell you about your emotions, feelings, trauma, reactions, behaviors and circumstances. By journaling, you take over the narrative of your own life. You state your own feelings and emotions. You own your opinions and feelings. You learn to understand yourself more. 

2 | Journaling helps you to find your voice

When we talk to friends and loved ones, we use kind and compassionate voices. When we talk to strangers in the store, we use cordial tones. More often than not, however, we use harsh and negative voices when talking to ourselves. You might not realize the extremity of your negativity until you write it down.

3 | Journaling can help you heal

Keeping things inside can be very painful. Saying them out is even more painful. This is why writing things down is a lot more easy. Journaling helps you to organize your feelings about trauma. It can also help to write your trauma down on paper and burn it up or tear it into tiny pieces. However, make sure to be careful if you are planning to burn anything.

4 | Journaling helps you notice behavioral patterns

Things sound different when you write them down. It gives you a different perspective into your own mind. Journaling consistently helps you to start noticing patterns in your behaviors. It helps you to notice your triggers, your happiness boosters, what leeches the life from you, what fills you with life, and consequently this helps you to avoid the negative and do more of the positive.

How to Journal for Mental Health

Here are 5 tips to help you learn how to journal mental health:

1 | Write about your feelings and emotions

In order to journal for mental health purposes, you need to write about the thoughts in your head. You can write about feelings, emotions and unpacking trauma. You can write down rules to follow for better mental health. You can write about your day. Make sure to track and process your thoughts. This will improve your mental health

2 | Write everything down

Journal about everything and nothing. Let yourself flow without any stoppers. Use bad grammar if you can’t stop the surge of words. Write the good and the bad. Don’t sugar-coat your words, but write like no one will ever read your journal (No one has to read it).

3 | Write every day

Journaling with consistency has many benefits. Try to write down your thoughts every day. You can create a routine of writing every day before you go to bed. This can help you to summarize the thoughts and emotions you felt that day.

4 | Bare yourself; write the truth

It can be hard to revisit painful memories. However, living with that pain is harder. In such situations, it’s a great idea to journal out your thoughts. Write the truth as you know it. Let your feelings loose and write them down. This is a great way to learn how to journal for mental health.

5 |Try out different prompts

You can use a wide variety of prompts to guide your journaling. You can journal about the highlight of your day, or journal about the things you are grateful for. Try out new prompts to switch things up. you can write letters to yourself, or to others. You can write letters to your future self. You can write visualizations about yourself being happier and successful.

Journal Prompts

Using journal prompts are a great way to get into journaling for mental health. I journal regularly, and these are the prompts I use to journal for mental health.

1 | Highlight of the day

This is one of my favorite journaling prompts. It ensures that you reflect on the events of your day and come up with the one that you enjoyed the most. It helps you to get some writing done even if it’s just a line or two.

2 | Affirmations

Affirmations are positive messages that you write to yourself. Some of my favorites are:

• Everything works out great for me
• I am a phenomenal human being
• People love and care for me

3 | Gratitude

Gratitude entries help you to be grateful for the abundance you have in your life. Write down the things that you are grateful for, for example your friends and family, the food you eat, the good things that happen to you, whenever things go right for you and the things that make you happy. This is a great journal prompt for improving mental health because it can help you to be more positive.

4 |Bullet journaling

Bullet journaling is for the list-lover in you. Bullet journaling is all about making lists out of everything. Being a fan of lists myself, this is perfect for me. It can help you to plan your day, record your routines, and keep track of your thoughts and feelings. This is also a great way to learn how to journal for mental health.

Get journaling

I hope you got some ideas on how to journal for mental health. Journaling is a great way to improve mental health. It can set you on the path to recognizing your thoughts and feelings. It can help you to understand your moods, and why you react the way you do. Get out a notebook, get on your phone, or fire up your laptop. Start writing about your day. Write what you are grateful for. Write down your affirmations. Set yourself on a self-improvement journey.