Why keeping a diary is useful: Meet yourself through writing

The act of keeping a diary, which is associated with childhood or adolescence, is actually a habit that benefits people at every stage of their lives. By keeping a diary, you can express your personal thoughts and feelings in sentences or pictures. Although we call it "keeping a diary", the main focus is that the period is not every day, but that it is in a certain routine and includes an expressive act of writing or drawing.

Journaling is also used in psychological therapies and helps to bring deep-seated thoughts and feelings to the surface. There is research indicating that writing down a difficult situation or a trauma can help to improve a person's psychological state.

Putting our thoughts and feelings into sentences or shapes helps the more complex parts of our brain to function. The limbic system is responsible for the emotions we feel. The limbic system is a small but important part in the middle of our brain that supports basic elements necessary for life, such as regulation of emotions and behavior, memory, hunger, fear. Our emotions originate from this center, but when we translate them into words, the more complex front part of our brain is activated. This change reduces the concentration on the amygdala, which keeps us in a constant state of alert, which normally allows us to initiate biological processes to protect us from the danger of death. This brings physical, cognitive and psychological benefits.

Research shows that putting deep feelings and thoughts into words regulates blood pressure, supports the immune system, provides physical fitness, strengthens memory, improves sleep quality, and enhances analytical thinking. In addition to these effects, the act of writing down what we feel and think is also of great importance for mental health. First of all, even recognizing and naming our emotions is a big step towards healing. When we put them into words or shapes, other underlying feelings and thoughts can emerge. As we write, we move out of the emotion and tend to show compassion rather than judging or criticizing ourselves. Putting deep thoughts and feelings on paper reduces stress and anxiety, breaks cycles that lead to obsessive thoughts, broadens perspective, regulates emotions and helps to heal depression. It reminds us that we are in control of managing our thoughts and feelings.

When journaling, concentrate less on the details of events or people and more on what feelings and thoughts they evoke in you and put them into words. It is possible that you can look at which event elicited these feelings, and from there go to different places and discover a new aspect of your personality or mindset.

Asking the following questions can help you with this:

What is the event you want to explore?

What happened and how did you feel as a result?

What went through your mind?

What was the event or situation that triggered these thoughts?

What assumptions and what did you believe when you were in that situation?

How accurate are these assumptions? (Try to question these thoughts objectively.)

What would you have done if you had changed your assumption or attitude in response to the event? If you knew you could break the cycle of negative emotions and thoughts, what would be your alternative belief?

You can turn this kind of writing into a daily activity and make it a routine, taking only 10-15 minutes at the end of each day. You can work in prose, diagrams or flowcharts. A nice notebook and colored pens can also be motivating to start this routine, or simply writing on a piece of paper and tearing it up and destroying it can be good for you. Especially if you have even the slightest concern about your writing being read, I recommend that you also consider the option of reading and destroying it after you have written it down, as this can prevent you from expressing your thoughts and feelings clearly.

Writing has never been an easy activity for me, but it has always been relaxing. Although I do the exercise I mentioned above for intense emotions and thoughts in more intermittent periods, keeping a bullet journal on a daily basis helps me to maintain my sanity.