There's nothing new about journaling. The benefits of the practice have been known for decades. In the book Search Inside Yourself, Chade-Meng Tan, Daniel Goleman & Jon Kabat-Zinn point to the conclusions of a University of Texas psychologist named James Pennebaker who "concluded that students who wrote about their most meaningful personal experiences for 15 minutes a day several days in a row felt better, had healthier blood work, and got higher grades in school." More recently still researchers asked 49 students to journal for only 2 minutes on two consecutive days and still saw a significant effect in mood and performance in standardized tests of wellbeing. That represents a large return on a 2 minute investment! These studies did not require the participants to write about anything in particular. The practice is aimed at self discovery, allowing thoughts to flow, writing down your stream of consciousness. Doing this can reveal what's really on your mind. While self discovery is itself a worthy cause to begin journaling, there exist practical applications for this habit. The same book quoted above cited another study by Stefanie Spera, Eric Buhrfeind, and James Pennebaker who followed a group of laid-off professionals who wrote"about their feelings for five consecutive days for twenty minutes each day" those who did found jobs at a much higher rate than those in the non-writing group. "After eight months, 68.4 percent of them found jobs, versus 27.3 percent from the control group." Such a result really makes one think. We all know that when we are in a "good place" everything seems to go well, and if something does goes wrong, it doesn't seem to bother us! Conversely, the opposite is also true, when we are worried about something, or have a difficult conversation pending, everything seems to go wrong and the smallest incident can set us off. This practice of daily journaling allows us to clarify our thoughts and emotions, which in turn sets us up for deciding on a course of action, rather than continuing to ruminate on the incident. As a consequence this frees up space to be more present and aware in the moment which has been shown to be a major contributing factor to happiness.
Back in 2014 I wrote about keeping a gratitude journal. That too can have a significant impact in your day to day experience. One thing that has come up in the past is that when keeping a gratitude journal, it can sometimes be quite difficult to express frustration, disappointment and anger in the same notebook. Specially because we often put a lot of effort in making sure we pick out a special notebook that inspires us! Therefore my recommendation is to keep separate journals. An "I hate the world" journal, where one can express negative feelings can be difficult to find, most conventional journals are inspirational, peaceful. My solution was to make my own. Since then I have made them for some of my clients as well. To see what these look like or request one of your own click here. Whatever goal you are trying to achieve, whether internal peace or resolution a difficult situation in your life, journaling can be a powerful tool in meeting your goal.