Journaling - how it impacts your mental wellbeing, how to do it and prompts!
Journaling can reduce stress, overwhelm and help you to plan or even just think more clearly. You can reflect, cultivate feelings like gratitude, appreciation and pride - but just how do you journal and why?
If you’re reading this post, then there’s a good chance you’ve thought about journaling before. But sometimes, it can feel really overhwelming. The point of journaling is to reduce that feeling of having 100 tabs open in your brain, but it can often seem like the opposite is going to happen without a little guidance.
That’s why I’m giving you some journaling prompts to help you along, and I’ve broken them into different categories to be more specific.
But first, why do people journal?
Well…I’ll get a little personal here. For me, journaling isn’t something I do religiously. But it is a tool that I use when I’m in the midst of a panic attack, and also a tool I used often to help me through Post Natal Depression. To be honest with you, panic attacks and PND were never things I envisioned would affect me, but 6 months into the Motherhood journey and here we are!
When my thoughts and emotions feel so huge that I can’t move through them on my own, I grab out my journal and do a big ‘dump’ of everything I’m thinking and feeling. There’s no structure, it’s literally just whatever comes to mind and flows through my pen onto the paper. It helps me to feel like I can make sense of and sort through my thoughts.
But enough about me, studies have shown that journaling can increase productivity, reduce stress and overwhelm and focus on feelings like gratitude and appreciation. Essentially, your journaling practice is yours and will look a little different to everyone else’s…but that’s okay! Each journaling practice is individual. So to get you on your way, let’s start with some journaling prompts:
Personal
How do I feel today? How do I want to feel? What can I do to move towards this feeling?
What does my ideal day look like?
What is the most important thing to me in life right now?
When do I feel the most motivated?
What does self care look like to me today?
Reflective
What have I achieved this week?
What do I want to let go of this coming week?
What is something that has been on my mind lately?
Is there an area of life I feel I haven’t been focusing on as much lately? Would I like to change that? How?
Gratitude focused
3 things I’m grateful for and why
Who / what am I grateful for this week?
What is something I really enjoy doing and why?
How can I show myself some gratitude and appreciation today?
What would my past self be proud of me for this year?
Goal Setting
What are 5 things I want to achieve this month? How will I feel when I have achieved them?
I will feel more organised if I …
The one thing that will make the biggest difference for me to achieve this week is…
What is one thing I can action in the next 24 hours towards that?
What am I avoiding or procrastinating that is getting in my way?
Remember, there is no right or wrong way to journal! Some people love structure and journaling prompts every time, others hate the prompts and like to just free-flow their thoughts and then there’s the people that sit in the middle of the two and float between using prompts and free-flowing.
You can view this as another way to connect with yourself and your intuition. Feel into what you are leaning towards that day when you sit down with your pen and paper (or notes section in your phone!) and roll with it. Be curious, don’t judge any thoughts or feelings that come up and congratulate yourself for taking the time to connect back to you.