Journalizing

Duration: 21 days

Journalizing like a primitive person on a paper, writing in your own handwriting is a tough job nowadays. With AI and notepads, we feel like doing it with ease and often fall for gadgets for our journalizing. Some might wonder what is the difference if it’s in a laptop or phone while I am writing.

We understand that it’s your own thoughts even if you write on a laptop but it is interesting to know that handwriting engages multiple brain regions simultaneously, including the motor, visual, and sensory cortices. This broad activation encourages deeper cognitive processing, improved memory formation. The physical sensations of holding a pen, feeling the texture of the paper, and controlling the fine motor movements require more mental effort and sensory input than typing, which mainly activates the motor cortex. This process of writing with your own hands about emotions could be extremely effective to bring in thoughtfulness. You can try this exercise with your emotion of DISGUST and Disapproval. This exercise will be very helpful during the processing of several emotions and especially this one.

So, please give yourself a notepad which you can fit in your bag, laptop bag, backpack which comes along with a pen so you do not have to search for it and start writing about your thoughts and feelings when you are overwhelmed, happy, sad, joyful and angry. 

Journaling reduces the intensity of emotional reactions by calming the brain’s amygdala and decreasing stress and anxiety levels. It also promotes self-awareness, helping people recognize patterns, triggers, and healthier coping strategies, which ultimately leads to better emotional control. 

Journalizing is an excellent tool for emotional regulation. Following are few key benefits of journalizing from a clinician’s lens.

• It encourages self-reflection and emotional processing, helping to clarify thoughts and feelings.
• Provides a safe outlet to express worries, hopes, and insights, reducing stress and anxiety.
• Helps identify and understand emotions clearly, leading to appropriate responses instead of reactive eruptions. Use the feeling wheel to find out the present emotion which you are feeling and write it down.
• Develop a self-awareness, when you are triggered try to write it down and think back and reflect on it. This is an excellent way to find meaningful responses rather than reacting at the moment. 
• Over time this practice of journaling enhances your emotional resilience and supports you in your long-term mental wellness.

Journalizing is also a new habit we are trying to build which will be helpful to establish your understanding of emotions when you write and reflect. Thereby helping you to form responses and reduce reactions. Since, we are making it a habit.

At least 21 days or more you must start journalizing your emotions.