Can you journal your way to happiness?

By Anugraha Sundaravelu

The newest way to keep tabs on your mental health is journaling. Anugraha Sundaravelu speaks to people who use this mindful practice as a tool to deal with their mental health issues positively.

Open Pinterest and one of the most popular things you’ll come across is mood boards for journals. With a rise in awareness about mental health this hobby has given rise to its own subculture. Not to be confused with a diary which is a record of things as they happen, a journal is used to explore thoughts and ideas which can be current, speculative or retrospective in nature. The aim is to encourage you to explore your thoughts and feelings surrounding the events in your life.

Why do people journal?

Six years ago when Izabella Petkow, 20, learnt that her best friend had taken her own life, she found it hard to talk about her grief to friends and family - especially given that the person she confided in most was gone.

So instead, she turned to journaling. “I would just write down what I wanted to say and sometimes add pictures or drawings to it,” she explains. “That was my first journal. By 2014, I was doing it every other day whenever I’d collected enough stories that I could not tell my best friend.”

Last year, Amruuta Parwar, 23, a research associate, experienced a mental breakdown. Both in therapy and mental health podcasts, journaling was recommended as an effective tool to keep her mental health on track, so she decided to give it a go. “It’s been a year now, and I write probably once every 10 to 15 days,” she says.

“I was diagnosed with depression, and I had — and still have — a lot of issues with self-love. Journaling has helped me break down my thought processes and made me understand that the things I think are too huge, hardly matter. It helps me understand my own thought patterns and why I think the way I do about myself.”

For Malvika Sheth, 21, a social media influencer, journaling turned out to be a much-needed outlet to express herself. “It reminds me that my worth does not always have to be tied to how well I’m doing in my work. I needed journaling to help revive the ‘life’ aspect of the work-life balance we all strive to have.” Others who have experienced bullying in the past such as Jo Threlfall, 27, a journalist, likewise extol the benefits of journaling. She first started journaling during her difficult times at school and has continued practising it well into adulthood. “It’s helped me rethink how I communicate with people and my own thoughts,” she says. “Doing this has helped give me more confidence to be outspoken and helped me feel less anxious.”

For Arushi Tandon, also in her twenties, an academic, journaling was something she picked up from movies, such as The Princess Diaries, which led her to open a blank notebook and start writing when she was just eight. “I’ve been journaling for nearly nine years, but I’ve had my phases. I do remember that my frequency was at a maximum during my school exams when I was really stressed out,” she says.

“Journaling has been very cathartic to my mental health and really helps me make sense of my thoughts,” she adds. “Sometimes I do it as a preventive measure to avoid impending panic attacks or anxiety attacks when I start feeling one coming on.” Bullet journals are another popular form of journaling which involve making extensive lists. For stationary junkies, bullet journals are the perfect way to express creativity and feel in control but don’t necessarily work for everyone.

Arushi says, “I did try bullet journaling but realised that it didn’t work for me. Sometimes I’ll sit and write pages about an incident that affected me or sometimes I’ll write updates about my life in three or four lines and call it a day. I also use print outs of pictures for certain journal entries where I’m trying to detach myself from something or being grateful for something. I often stick train and plane tickets and stuff too as reminders of travelling I’ve done.” However, for Izabella, bullet journaling allows her to express herself more creatively. “After about three years, I started getting interested in creative journaling in addition to my normal journaling. I’ve posted some of the creative stuff on my Instagram account, but most of the other stuff remains private. I also started keeping an ‘our story’ journal of my relationship based on pictures and tickets, so when we have kids, they can read it all.”

Why is journaling so effective?

According to psychologist Dennis Relojo-Howell who hosts the radio show Psych Chat with Dennis, it has to do with the concept of ‘expressive writing’. Pioneered in the late 1980s by James Pennebaker, expressive writing is now widely considered as therapeutic.

“It involves expressing ourselves through writing. This writing is personal, allowing the writer to explore and express personal feelings. The piece may attempt to answer a question, state an opinion or recount one’s personal experiences,” Relojo-Howell explains. “Studies have revealed that expressive writing can help assuage psychological trauma and enhance our mood.”

“Journaling helps me make sense of my thoughts”

This is certainly the case for Amruuta. “What changed is how I think,” she says. “Journaling has made me realise that I never acknowledged the positives and fixated on the negatives. Journaling taught me to move away from that. I wouldn’t say journaling helped me cure my mental health issues, but it did help me understand my problems.”

Likewise, for someone diagnosed with depression, PTSD, and an anxiety disorder like Izabella, journaling has helped her process many things. “It always calms me down, but I need to be relaxed enough to do it. It’s just like taking a bath; you wouldn’t go into a relaxing bathtub if you were shivering from a nightmare or stressed from a fight and [then] feel like walking a marathon. It’s the same for journaling,” she says.

Malvika believes it’s been a massive help for dealing with the stress that comes with forging a career that is entirely online. “Journaling has helped me cope with my feelings of anxiety that are tied to an occupation that has a high unpredictability and sporadic bouts of work,” she says. “I used to lose a lot of sleep and wake up extremely anxious about what the next day would look like, but putting my thoughts down on paper really put things into perspective. I realised it was better to focus on what was in my control, and that was my own health.”

How you can start journalling

First of all, relax and let go of any ideas about doing it the 'right' way— because when it comes to journaling, there’s no such thing. Your journal is a personal space for you to use however you see fit. If you don’t know what to write about, a great place to begin is by asking yourself questions. How do I feel right now? Why do I feel that way? How do I want to feel? What can you do to feel that way?

After that, just get started. The scariest thing about journaling is that first blank page. It can seem intimidating but once you’ve put ink to paper, there’s no going back.