Journaling for a week

Thursday, April 7th, 2022 Experiential

A way to keep the stress away

Eva Johnson

Copy Editor

Aquestion I’ve often wondered about is, ‘does journaling help relieve stress?,’ and I finally found the answer. For myself anyway.

Throughout the past couple of years I have always been interested in giving journaling a try, but I never made it one of my priorities.

However, for a week I was able to do just that, and what I found surprised me.

I have always been a skeptic when it comes to most things. Journaling has been a known act of self-care for quite some time, but I never thought it would impact me positively.

Through the week, I kept an open mind, I swear I did. But unfortunately, my skepticism was proved right.

Journaling didn’t do much for me, and I don’t think I’ll be keeping it as a top priority in my life.

Now, as a disclaimer, I understand that everyone has different ways of coping with stress and you should always feel good about incorporating practices into your life that help you.

I just found that, personally, journaling was not beneficial.

The first day, I will admit, wasn’t too bad. Right as I got into my bed, I pulled out my computer, wrote the date, and began to write whatever came to my mind.

I tried not to worry about my grammar and just went with the flow of my thoughts.

That was the only night that I thoroughly enjoyed writing about my day. It went downhill from there.

For the next two days, I tried writing in the morning. That didn’t help at all. It genuinely caused me more anxiety because it had me worried about the coming events of the day instead of being able to reflect on them after they have already passed. So, that method didn’t work.

The next day, I tried writing in the middle of the day but gave up on that quickly because I was not willing to write while eating lunch - that’s on me though.

So, for the final days of the week, I went back to journaling before bed.

Nothing came to mind. I do the same things everyday, which is something I did realize while journaling. I wake up, go to school, deal with people, come home, do homework, eat, and then sleep.

By the end of the week, I was feeling so tortured and tired of having to journal anything at all.

I tried to fall asleep, and all those fresh thoughts of both good and bad moments caused me so much anxiety that I could not sleep. I thought journaling was supposed to have the opposite effect.

However, there is a positive side to this. I did find that it helped express my feelings without having to talk to someone. It can be hard for some (including myself) to tell someone, even a person you are close to, how you are feeling about

I did find that it helped express my feelings without having to talk to someone.

what’s going on in your life, so I did appreciate having the opportunity to vent.

I also did like going back after the week had finished and reflecting on the stuff I ranted about the most. Politics is one of those things.

Something I found interesting was seeing what had caused me so much trouble in the heat of the moment and to think about whatever came out of it.

With journaling, I became more aware of certain experiences in my life.

First, I realized the routine that I have, and since it’s spring, I think it’s a good opportunity to be able to switch it up.

Second, I noticed all of the little things that do make me happy. It was good to realize the good things that happen even when I don’t know at the moment. To me, that’s a benefit to journaling.

Sometimes being able to reflect on the positive experiences helped me put the stressful situations into perspective. I could take a moment to breathe.