There was a time when keeping a journal was a common practice, long before our lives became so digitalized. Typically, it was encouraged by idealistic teachers in elementary school and was often enjoyed by young people. However, once those eager hands became acquainted with a touchscreen, keeping a journal unfortunately became a habit that only a fraction of us continued. So, what if I told you that keeping a journal has benefits? Would you consider returning to this habit? Benefits of journaling can be convincing!

Recently, while conducting some research, I came across some interesting information about the benefits of journaling. My curiosity peaked after reading about it, prompting me to delve a little deeper, and I encountered even more intriguing insights.

Although I have kept a journal for many years since I learned to write, I think if someone were to ask me about the benefits of journaling, these insights wouldn’t be the first that came to mind. I wonder what those who have journaled like me would say in response to this question. I’m curious how many of the benefits you could guess from what you will read next. Enjoy reading!

What Are the Benefits of Keeping a Journal? 5 Benefits of Journaling

While journaling is an activity that requires organization, stability, effort, and time, it is one of the most important aids in maintaining both our physical and mental well-being, thanks to its countless benefits. It’s more than just a blank notebook where you recount your experiences; it’s a significant medium where you can relax your soul, get to know yourself, and clarify your priorities. While not forgetting what you’ve experienced, remembering important dates, or passing on beautiful memories to the future are well-known primary benefits, there are actually many unexpected advantages to journaling.

1.Helps You Name Your Emotions

Many people believe that certain fundamental emotions dominate the events they experience throughout the day. Alongside feelings like shame, sadness, joy, or jealousy, there may be hidden emotions that often go unnoticed.

Journaling allows you to express your experiences in their entirety and in your most vulnerable state before the heat of the event fades. Without the fear of someone else hearing or seeing it, the sentences you write can help bring your hidden feelings to light.

When you look back and read the details of a day, you may discover that alongside sadness, there was also a bit of disappointment, or that alongside joy, there was a touch of pride. This is why journaling enables you to identify your true emotions and label them from a different perspective.

2.Strengthens Your Memory

Much of what is said, experienced, or told can fade from your mind over time. Many people tend to remember past events not as they were, but rather in different ways due to the misleading nature of the emotions felt at that time. In other words, the accuracy of an event that happened to us is often overshadowed by the emotions we felt in the moment.

By noting our experiences as they happen, we can prevent our memory from misleading us. Occasionally recalling them, reading the experiences in detail, and vividly reconstructing those moments in your mind are made possible through journaling. Moreover, the joy of easily recalling these cherished memories whenever you want, enriching your soul with happy recollections, is truly rewarding.

3.Removes Stress from Your Life

Writing down some things allows you to remember them, while other things can be pushed away by writing. You can transfer your lingering thoughts, worries, or frustrations to your journal, your oldest confidant, and enjoy the relief of distancing yourself from negative thoughts and overcoming stress.

Stepping away from stress can also motivate you in other areas of your life that you wish to pursue.

4.Helps You Focus on Yourself

Turning away from the virtual realms of modern life to a primitive pen and paper helps redirect your focus inward. Journaling allows you to see yourself, your thoughts, and your dreams more clearly amid silence, solitude, and simplicity.

Most importantly, it provides an opportunity for you to rest, even if only temporarily stepping away from the routine of daily life.

5.Enhances Your Problem-Solving Skills

Journaling allows you to recognize similar patterns that accumulate over the years in a notebook where you recount various events. When you notice that similar causes lead to similar outcomes, your perspective on situations and events shifts. Problems that initially seemed unsolvable either cease to be issues or become easier to resolve

Thus, you can strengthen your reflexes in problem-solving; find alternative behaviors to the unresolved actions you took in the past; and develop yourself by truly embracing personal growth.

Utilize Schematics

Although many people recognize the benefits of journaling, they are reluctant to start because they are too lazy to write down everything that happens to them throughout the day—and they are absolutely right! However, you don’t have to write everything in intricate detail to keep a journal.

Instead, you can keep a journal by taking simple, brief notes that highlight the most important parts of your experiences, writing down your feelings about those experiences concisely, or creating diagrams.

Digital Journaling is Possible!

If you want to keep a journal but find it daunting to write with a notebook and pen, you might consider digital journaling. After about 15 years of journaling, I began digital journaling a few years ago. I keep my journal on Canva, and it’s quite easy to write since I can access it from both my phone and my computer. There are also other apps available for this purpose, but you can simply open a notes page and start writing.

What do you think about this? Do you believe the benefits of journaling are real? If you keep a journal, do you observe these benefits in your life? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments. 🙂