Writing not only activates the working memory and improves cognitive processes, but it also promotes healing. For this reason, journaling is seen as an effective habit in promoting mental healing and wellness.
Mental health professionals recommend journaling as a therapeutic practice as it assists therapists in measuring the clients' progress, and it stimulates the clients' introspection. Journaling helps clients decompress and deal with emotional pressure. Additionally, it promotes awareness of mindless habits, brings up light to irrational thoughts, and it is also a great tool to keep track of problematic emotions and behavior.
Professionals suggest that when clients read their personal writings out loud, they are able to rationalize their problems on a lighter note, as now it seems as if it is “someone else’s story". When people read, they subconsciously take a "third person's perspective" and isn't easier to give advice to a friend than to yourself?. Moreover, at the moment of reading back journal notes, the emotions are no longer as vivid as the difficult situation already dissolved. Hence, retrospection and objectivity emerge.
A professor and physician from Harvard, Rafael Campo, examines people with medical struggles through the composition of poems he found that this skill keeps patients at a distance from their medical and psychological struggles. He also attests that writing helps people "feel human, find meaning, and confront their suffering".
Although journaling does not require fancy words and structured writing, it requires consistency. Journaling is an acquired skill that entails a process of development and comfort. Yet, it is a powerful meditating habit with holistic benefits.
I am a Mental Health Professional, and I have devoted the past 10 years to professional development intending to become fully equipped to spread good practices and promote holistic evolution for those who seek it. In the process of my career, I have grown fond of journaling and writing. For this reason, I created "10 WEEKS OF EVOLUTION" where people will find a harmonious space to plan, journal, and work on their self-development through therapeutic activities.
Your Hustler,
Daniela Marin
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