So much of what happens to a person when they are experiencing a mental health crisis can feel outside of their control, as though they do not have the power to participate in their own care. At Palms Behavioral Health in Harlingen, Texas, we believe that our patients should be fully engaged in their treatment, which is why we encourage them to journal.
How Journaling Can Help
Journaling can have many benefits for mental health, such as:
- Reducing anxiety
- Helping people to obsess less over certain topics
- Increasing awareness of behavioral patterns
- Enhancing emotional regulation
- Providing a way to track and express emotions
- Making it easier to put into words what help would be most useful
- Offering an opportunity to explore ideas and beliefs, as well as potential solutions to problems
Pros of Journaling
There are a lot of reasons that patients and mental health providers like journaling as a tool for supporting mental health, some of which include:
- Affordability – although fancy journals are available with many bells and whistles, you can also download a free app, buy a notebook from the dollar store, or open up a word processing file on a computer.
- Portability – you can take a journal pretty much anywhere, allowing you to write any time you feel like recording your thoughts.
- No drug interactions – pills can interact with each other, and people sometimes have bad reactions to certain medications, but because journaling doesn’t require the introduction of chemicals into the body, it won’t create these issues.
- Potential enhancement to treatment – if you have ever gotten into a therapy session and drawn a blank about what you wanted to discuss or left an appointment with your psychiatrist and remembered a new symptom you forgot to mention, you might have wished that you had a journal to consult as a reminder.
- Minimal time obligation – you can journal in just five to ten minutes.
- Flexibility – you can write first thing in the morning, on your lunch break, before bed, or when you wake up at 3 am and have an idea worth noting.
Cons of Journaling
Sometimes, when people keep a journal, they worry about their privacy being respected. If this is a concern you have, you might find it helpful to journal on your phone or a computer that is password-protected.
Types of Journals
There isn’t just one way to format a journal. If you have tried journaling before and it didn’t appeal to you, try a different type of journaling and see if it works better. Some options include:
- Stream of consciousness – let the thoughts flow without trying to guide or edit them
- Lists – whatever topic you choose, jot down everything related to it; topics could be things such as feelings, losses, decisions, triggers, coping skills, or happy memories
- Gratitude-focused – record a few things every day that make you feel thankful
- Affirmations – write down positive things about yourself or what you are achieving
- Intentions – write down your hopes and set goals
- Prayers and blessings – record what you would like to see happen in your life or the lives of people you know
- Daily inventory – write down whatever happens in your day and reflect on it
What to Write
Don’t worry about punctuation, spelling, or grammar. You’re not being graded, after all. This is just a tool that you can use to support your own well-being. If you are stuck on a subject to write about, you can look online for writing prompts or, if writing isn’t your thing, you might decide an art journal would be more helpful.
Tips for Journaling
If you have not journaled in the past, you might find it helpful to:
- Establish a journaling habit. It may be easier to stick with this if you stack it with an existing habit, like a morning meditation or your bedtime routine.
- Keep it simple. Set a timer and write for a few minutes.
- Do what feels right for you. Your journal can be anything you want it to be.
- Make modifications as needed. You don’t have to follow a specific format. Poems, songs, or letters can be a way of journaling. If writing isn’t working for you, you can keep voice memos on your phone instead.
- Manage your expectations. Journaling isn’t going to solve all of your problems. It won’t replace your therapist, but it might teach you about yourself and allow you to open up about subjects you have struggled to discuss.
At Palms Behavioral Health, we offer individualized treatment to meet the needs of adolescents, adults, and seniors struggling with mental illness. We provide trauma-informed, evidence-based inpatient and outpatient treatment that takes a whole-person approach and encourages our patients to explore different tools to find what works for them.
