Whether you’re looking for a new journal to record your deepest thoughts, what you’re grateful for, or to clarify your goals for the year ahead, there’s no doubt that journalling helps to create more meaning in your day-to-day.
So, if you’re wondering what to do with your latest notebook, we’ve put together three compelling reasons why a daily journalling practice should be first on your list.
Help Process Emotions
The key to ensuring your journalling practice has a meaningful impact on your life is to incorporate it into each day. By taking the time to write down your thoughts from the day, you’ll gain insights into feelings that you might not have recognized initially.
Fostering more awareness of your thoughts in this way can help you come to terms with difficult emotions and situations. Doing so will enable you to process any feelings you may have and ultimately move through them to the other side.
Foster Mindfulness
Incorporating just 20 minutes of journalling into your daily routine can encourage the slowing down of your thoughts and allow you to focus on the present moment. And what’s great about this is the more you practice this routine, the more your brain will become familiar with this practice of mindfulness.
By training your brain to be present without worrying about what’s happened or what is going to happen, it creates a sense of calm and relaxes muscle tension, too.
Improve Sleep
Jotting down even a few lines before bed in your favourite journal can help offload the thoughts and worries of the day. If it has been a particularly heavy day, though, it’s best to start this journalling time at least two or three hours before bed to leave some time for moving past any tricky emotions.
However, it’s still worthwhile to stick to writing down a few points to be grateful for or to-do lists to ensure tomorrow’s tasks don’t creep into your relaxation hours, paving the way for a more restful slumber.
