Improve Your Mental Health by Keeping a Journal

Do you constantly think up interesting creative ideas?  Are you always struggling to remember your next appointment?  Do you simply need to vent?  If you fit any of these cases, you can experience mental relief and improved mental health by keeping a daily journal.

Whether you are the creative inventor, a traveling businessman, or some combination of these and more, there are bound to be many thoughts and ideas passing through your mind.  Sometimes these ideas seem to become trapped inside, floating and bouncing around inside your head.  Especially for a thought worth remembering, the best thing to do is to write it down!

Choose to start now!

Step #1: Choose Your Journal

The first item on the checklist is the journal itself.  Head on out to your local office supply store or bookstore, and spend the time (and money) to check out different styles and pick your favorite.  You’ll be glad you did!  Do the same for a pen or marker.  From lined pages and a Sharpie to blank pages and a quill pen, determine what is right for you and go with it.  This way, you’ll enjoy picking up your journal to express yourself.

Step #2: Establish the Habit

That said, the next step is to begin a habit of actually using the journal!  Especially if you carry a purse or briefcase of sorts, build the habit of keeping you journal (and pen!) with you wherever you go.  The best moment is record your idea or reminder is the very moment in which the thought entered your mind.  You might even consider using sticky notes or other methods to remind yourself to use the journal.

Step #3: Be Persistent

Even if you feel like you can keep everything straight in your mind, I challenge you to try using a journal for a couple weeks.  I share from personal experience when I say that it is refreshing to express yourself in such a way.  Even more, you will be able to go back through your journal (on a daily or weekly basis), to re-discover your inventive ideas or to remember to call your friend from college. 

So many good ideas go to waste, and so many wonderful to-do’s go unfulfilled simply due to forgetfulness (maybe from an influx of new ideas).  The practice of keeping a journal will help to enrich your daily life both mentally and practically.

Step #4: Chart Your Growth

Another prime benefit of a journal is that you are inherently charting your growth and progress through tough times, trials, and great endeavors of life.  On the other hand, reading back through the months and years, you might notice harmful patterns that you want to break.  Either way, when you keep a journal, you give yourself the opportunity to see where you have come in relation to where you have been.  It’s like writing your autobiography along the way. 

Step #5: Share With Others

At times, you might share certain encouraging points with others.  Even so, you just might inspire someone else with the inspiration you yourself have encountered, and recorded!  So go out today to find your new journal and begin writing.  You’ll be glad you did!