How Journal Writing Can Help Improve Your Mental Health
During this coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, you can take this tremulous time to add to your journal about your experiences and reflections regarding this unplanned contagious catastrophic crisis. You can document your experience of the coronavirus (COVID-19) as a way to reduce anxiety and boredom while improving your mental health.
If you choose to write about your experience, journal writing has many benefits. This daily practice of extracting your thoughts from your body is a great way to alleviate stress and anxiety. Expressing your thoughts and not keeping them to yourself and internalizing them, may help in varying and constructive ways that can benefit you and your interpersonal relationships.
It is a great way to self-care and improves your mental health. With everything that goes on during the day, it is hard to process all your thoughts and emotions. As stress, anxiety, and various emotions build throughout your day, journal writing is a great way to unload your thoughts from out of your head. If you feel as though someone might read your journal you can always change names and identities around so you can feel more at ease if someone finds the journal. There are many apps where you can journal write on your phone.
I've found that there is a great relief that can come with visualizing your thoughts leaving your head and running down your arm, to your hand and allowing the thought to travel from your hand through the writing instrument (pen, pencil, marker, etc.) onto the paper. Please try to be mindful of using eco-friendly materials as there is a lot of things happening to our wildlife and Mother Earth.
This visualization practice of releasing can help get out negative thoughts and emotions that have been building up throughout the day. You can also use this time to eat a healthy snack that will boost your immune system, such as an apple if you are not allergic.
Words can come to life with imagery
Make journal writing as an opportunity to write the story of your life. Words and imagery make things feel alive and can paint a vivid picture of what is being described. As you journal wright remember that your words, memories, experiences, feelings, and thoughts can help you see things and concepts in a new way. Think of the colors, smells, senses you felt during the day and the emotions behind your interactions and daily activities and how it made you feel.
We are filled in a world of external distractions that it has become hard for us to look inward and internally into how we feel about what is happening to us. Let your thoughts and emotions have a chance to live outside of you to feel lighter and more at peace. Journal writing is a fabulous way to unlock your inner answers and wisdom. Get to know you better by taking the time to search and go deep within! You might be pleasantly surprised to see what you find out.
