It’s hard to spend much time in the ‘wellness’ sections of bookshops or online media without coming across journals or articles telling us why we should be journaling. So, is it the latest fad or is there something in it?
An article in Positive Psychology magazine in July this year collated data from several studies which seem to support the claim that writing in a journal does indeed support our mental well-being.
They highlighted two types of journaling that are particularly beneficial: Expressive Writing & Gratitude Journaling. But studies have also demonstrated that ‘therapeutic writing’ and ‘free writing techniques’ are also beneficial. So, what are these techniques and how do they help?
Negativity Bias
First of all, we need to understand a bit about how the human brain works, and this means understanding negativity bias.
This is the name given to the survival mechanism in the brain that makes us focus on what went badly so that we can learn from these experiences. It was very useful when negative threats were a life-or-death situation. Although it has helped us survive successfully, it comes at an emotional cost.
It means that we feel unpleasant events more than pleasant ones. We remember them in more detail, and we think about them more. We will often describe a day as having been ‘dreadful’ when most of it was pleasant or neutral, but we have ended up focusing on one upsetting event & forgetting the rest.
Consider how you would generally think about a beautiful sunset, for example. Once you’ve thought, ‘that was a lovely sunset,’ you probably don’t think much more about it. But if you had an unpleasant altercation with a colleague, you would probably spend quite some time replaying the conversation along with thoughts such as, ‘why did they have to be like that?’ and ‘I wish I’d said …’ or, ‘next time, I’ll do such and such,’ and so on. These thoughts then produce unpleasant feelings which become emotions such as anger, sadness, frustration etc.
The brain does this to try and help us solve problems or fix situations. The difficulty is though that all this dwelling on the negative and not really focusing on the positive (other than a quick, ‘that was nice’ fleeting thought) means that we regularly get flooded with unpleasant emotions.
Not only that, but once these emotions take hold, we can’t even think rationally about the situation anymore. It gets blown out of proportion, it piggy backs onto other situations and perceived ‘failures’ from the past, and can easily feed into a mood which can stay with us for some time.
How does journaling help?
Because the mind doesn’t naturally dwell on pleasant experiences, they tend to pass us by whilst we focus on our problems. But it takes around just 15 seconds to imbed a pleasant thought into the memory, so by writing about it you are training your brain to retain more pleasant memories which ultimately creates a happier outlook.
By writing down pleasant experiences as well as things that trouble us, we can focus on them long enough that they have a beneficial emotional effect instead of sliding straight out of our awareness before we have registered them.
Even writing about our unpleasant thoughts & experiences has been shown to improve our mental health and reduce sick days. It also helps us accept our thoughts rather than judge them, & we feel less stressed. Getting thoughts on paper helps us to view them differently, this is sometimes called ‘cognitive defusion’.
What are the different forms of journaling?
Expressive Writing: this is where we express all our thoughts and feelings on paper so we can get them ‘out of the head’ and view them with some distance. By writing them down and then returning to them later we can often view them with more clarity and less emotion. We can then make decisions based on facts rather than misplaced judgements.
Gratitude Journaling: this type of journaling focuses only on things that we can feel thankful for, and this helps to balance out the negativity bias. When we list all the many pleasant things we have experienced that day, especially focusing on the little things such as clean water, a smile from a stranger etc., we realise how much we have to be thankful for. This releases feel-good hormones into the body and if we describe something in detail, such as that lovely sunset, we can savour the experience and that has been shown to really boost happiness levels.
Therapeutic Writing: this uses specific techniques and is generally more helpful if guided by a therapist or you use specific templates as it encourages you to focus on distressing events. When done well this is extremely helpful in recovery from trauma.
Free writing: we set a timer for a specified amount of time, anything over seven minutes works, and then we just write anything and everything that comes into the mind without pausing, using grammar or punctuation or worrying about whether it makes sense. Afterwards we then read what we have written and often find that out of the initial jumble of thoughts a theme will emerge. This way we can find out what is behind some of our other thoughts and this informs what we might choose to do next.
Do men journal or is it just a ‘woman thing’?
Short answer is, generally no they don’t! But should they? Absolutely. Journaling works, and when men try it they can benefit more than women since women do tend to share their thoughts and feelings more readily. Men who feel inhibited about discussing emotional topics can find journaling an important outlet.
I was sent a link about journaling for men (thank you!), here it is for more information:
How does this link with mindfulness?
Mindfulness practice helps us journal more effectively, and journaling helps us to be more mindful of our thoughts. Remember the old teaching: ‘change your thoughts, change your world’? well, to do that we need to know what these thoughts are.
Journaling helps us to notice repetitive thinking patterns that we otherwise miss because we are so used to them they become background noise. Unfortunately, this background noise still produces emotional responses, and when it does we are often taken completely by surprise because we had no idea what thoughts were buzzing around.
Mindfulness practice helps us keep the useful thoughts (e.g. next time it might be better if I...) but with less anxiety attached to them. We learn to balance every day worries with an appreciation for the many things that go right each day & override our natural negative tendencies.
AND… once we clear the clutter of all this unhelpful thinking, we can really live our lives. Consider how when you think about a situation you want to change you are visualising being there. You are seeing the other people involved, hearing their voices, hearing your voice. You aren’t aware of what is happening around you. So, you are missing what Thich Nhat Hanh called ‘your appointment with life,’ and as he said, ‘this is very serious indeed.’
So I hope I have encouraged you to think about keeping a journal or diary (it’s an integral part of our six and eight-week courses for good reason), and to keep up your daily mindfulness practice, because it really works!
I recently came across this interview with Eckhart Tolle where he discusses the day-to-day, thought-based narratives of most people’s lives and suggests some tips for breaking free of them to live more fully in each moment, I hope you find it useful, maybe you can journal your thoughts after you watch it:
Thank you for reading and I will be back before Christmas with some thoughts on savouring and a short Christmas meditation for you.
All best wishes,
Natalie. x
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