Journaling Gives Many Benefits to Your Mind and Soul

This practice can help you connect with your unconscious mind and explore your relationship with yourself and others in a more fulfilling way.

Journaling starts with just a few scribbles on paper. It's almost like magic how it works, except it's not something fictional; it's actual science. And that's why psychologists across the world highly recommend journaling. Something that was once a way to record significant moments is now often used to help thoughts escape our heads. As Dr. Max Wachtel points out, "there's a process that our brains go through when we are stressed out, sad, or depressed. It's called rumination. We basically chew on our thoughts; we spin on them over and over."

According to Dr. Max, our brains don't know that we aren't speaking to somebody else when writing down our feelings. Nevertheless, journaling allows people to write those thoughts down, replicating a conversation with someone else. Exploring those thoughts and putting them out of our minds allows our brain to move on to other more productive things and stop overthinking.

The best part of journaling is that there is no right way to do it. Write in complete sentences if your heart desires or bullet points if you're short of time. As the psychologist highlights, there is no way you can screw up journaling. This exercise helps things escape your mind and allows you to retain information longer if you wish by boosting your memory. It can also help you get organized to set and achieve new goals.

There's no doubt that people can be more conscious about their mental barriers thanks to this practice and learn how to remove them through journaling. It can also help you cope with mental health symptoms, increase your mood, and help you find solutions to problems. As the benefits from this practice are endless, here are some exercises to get started.

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3 Journaling Exercises To Explore Your Relationship With Others

Maria Guadarrama, artist and Communications Consultant at UNICEF, recommends the following journaling exercises to understand the meaning behind your relationships and connect better with others.

1. Who do you trust the most and why? After having that person in mind, draw a visual metaphor of the word "trust" and write a descriptive paragraph of what form it has.

2. How do you show compassion to others? How do you extend that compassion to yourself? After having the answer clear, draw a visual metaphor of the word "compassion" and try to write a sentence that starts this way: "For me, compassion is like…"

3. What lessons have you learned from past relationships? Draw three plants representing each lesson and then write some gratitude words in each one.

With this quick, helpful exercise, you'll be able to spend quality time with yourself and work more on your self-growth.