Here's what we'll cover in this article:

Introduction
Journaling Is More Than Keeping A Diary!
Why Journal Instead Of A Different Coping Skill?
When To Journal For Depression
How To Journal For Depression
Common Objections To Journaling
Journaling Prompts For Depression
1: Write about your day.
2: Write about positives from your day.
3: List things you're grateful for.
4: List and explore your emotions
5: Take stock and notice your progress
6: Make a list of tasks and your goal
7: Write about a few of your accomplishments
8: Write about an aspect of self-improvement
9: Where would you like to be. Who would you like to be?
10: Discover more about yourself
11: Journal and track your symptoms
The Science Of Journaling For Mental Health
1: Journaling for Anxiety relief
2: Journaling for Depression
Summary

Introduction

One of the simplest things you can do to improve your mental health is to start journaling. It's a quick and easy coping skill which I highly recommend.

(In the UK we sometimes spell "journaling" as "journalling". For this article I'll stick with journaling because it's by far the most common spelling worldwide.)

All you need is a journal and a pen. It doesn't even have to be physical! Some people type daily notes into their phones or tablets. It's even possible to write with a pen (stylus) on your tablet such as an iPad Pro or Samsung Galaxy Tab.

I've found journaling to be tremendously helpful. When I started doing it I didn't even call it journaling. I was just writing down ideas, thoughts and insights as they occurred to me.

I noticed that important thoughts and insights would get forgotten if I didn't write them down, even if I told myself it was important and I should remember it!

In fact, it could feel really important and I'd say to myself, "this is so important, you're bound to remember it next time you write down the days' events". Did I remember it? No.

Things have to be jotted down immediately, either on paper or on your phone. Even if it's just a few words, it will reactivate the experience or feelings later when you come to write more detailed notes.

It felt really bad to lose those insights, so it's vital to get them down on paper before they floated away, never to be recaptured.

If I'm away from my journal, I use the note-taking ability on my phone and manually write it out later. I actually use sheets of paper and a massive arch-lever folder rather than a traditional journal. Almost every piece of paper in this folder contains hand-written notes from the last year:

Once they're written down, one thought often leads to another and I can glean some insight into my life. I can see what went wrong in the past and how to move forward into the future. Instantly the anxiety of not wanting to lose the thought is gone.

Also, the anxiety relating to whatever the thought was about is reduced as I can look at it and judge how important it really is.

Journaling Is More Than Keeping A Diary!

Sometimes people think "depression journaling" is like keeping a diary, or a planner. The truth is, journaling is nothing like that!

A diary has a restricted area for writing and convention dictates that you put in your appointments, meetings, birthdays and other things you don't want to forget. Then, if you want to share what happened during your day, you basically just list the days' events. You have no space to do anything else! It's restrictive and confining.

Journaling is much more flexible. You can use as many pages as you want, add doodles, glue in pictures, link concepts, use colour and generally have a much more enjoyable and personal experience. It's about you and your life. It's messy and interesting, not staid and dull.

Last week I was writing down thoughts, feeling and insights based on a particular topic when a poem came to me. It just tumbled onto the page along with the thoughts. I think the poem is much more important to me than the surrounding thoughts, but I doubt it would've come to me if I hadn't been writing already. I'm also pretty certain it would never have come to me had I been writing in a standard diary.

Why Journal Instead Of A Different Coping Skill?

With so many different strategies for better mental health, it can often be overwhelming to think what to do for the best. Should you do some breath work, practice mindfulness, go for a walk, call a friend, chill out with a book or something else?

I've always found that writing helps to "download" thoughts from my mind to somewhere else where they take physical form. When they're written down, they can then be inspected to sift the useful from the useless.

If I don't download my insights and important thoughts, I can't relax into any other coping skill. That's why I believe writing a journal to help heal from depression is a foundation to keeping your mind free of clutter. A clutter-free mind can focus on other things you need to do (or want to do, like other mental health coping skills) during the day. By journaling, you're freeing yourself to be mindful and aware during the day.

It's also calming just to get the weight of those thoughts "off my mind". There's something to be said for bringing your internal world to the page. It makes things real which allows you to think about them with some perspective.

Is the thought you just wrote down really what you've been anxious about for the past few hours? Now it's on the page, it doesn't seem so important. Or you may see the thought on the page and realize what you can do about that particular worry. Either way, you've got a great chance of feeling better and reducing your anxiety. It's similar to a therapy session, but it's something you can do at almost any time, in comparison to seeing a therapist and having them work through your thoughts with you.

When To Journal For Depression

When you journal is completely up to you. Some people gain benefit from journaling in the morning having "slept on" their concerns and worries. Some people gain benefit from the exact opposite. Instead of journaling in the morning, they do it last thing at night as an aid to processing the day before going to sleep.

I've done both, but generally I'll write thoughts and insights down as they occur to me during the day, which is how I generated the paper shown above. I'll also write notes on my phone last thing at night. I don't often write anything first thing in the morning, unless sleep has thrown up something specific I need to write down.

I suggest trying out journaling at different times of the day and seeing what works best for you and fits into your schedule best.

How To Journal For Depression

What I do is write down what I consider to be important thoughts, feelings, events and insights. It's amazing how much doesn't get transferred from short term memory to long term memory. If an important event happens to you, something which stirs your emotions, it's important to stay in the moment. Actually recognise what's going on, then write it down as soon as you can, whether that's physically or on your phone. You'll capture much more authentic information the sooner you do it.

My preference is to write down quite a lot and try to get some instant insights and understandings. However, I'll also return to the text the next day and use a highlighter pen to mark the most important points.

When you generate a decent volume of text, it can be very tempting to never return to it because you've got the current day's events to capture. However, then you just generate a constant stream of daily thoughts. While that can be useful because you're "downloading" and helping to process your thoughts, you're not letting them "sink in".

By returning to them the next day, you can contemplate and reflect on your previous experiences. You can highlight the most important thoughts, feelings and emotions from a different perspective. You'll also make it easier to return to that day's events in a month or two and be able to easily pick out what happened and how you felt about it. Over time you'll "distil" the most important lessons you need to learn and what to do to incorporate those lessons into your life.

I think this ability to pick out the most important lessons by revisiting days is one of the biggest benefits to keeping an ongoing journal for mental health.

Common Objections To Journaling

Common objections to journaling are that you don't have enough time. I find it hard to believe that anyone can't find 5, 10 or 15 minutes in the day to jot down their thoughts.

If every minute of your day is being used productively, is it possible to wake 15 minutes earlier, or go to sleep 15 minutes later? Perhaps one or more tasks you do during the day could be delegated to someone else, thereby freeing you up to take some "me time" and write in your journal? Perhaps you could document where your time goes. I'm sure you'll find some being used non-productively. :)

Perhaps you find it hard to find a quiet space in your house to journal. If that's the issue, you could either try to find a different location such as a corner of the garden, a shed, the garage or even your car or the local park or coffee shop. If none of that's possible, you could still potentially find some quiet time in your house at the beginning or end of the day.

When you consider how powerful journaling is, and how much more convenient it is than a visit to a therapist, I strongly suggest trying hard to find time, even if it's only 5 minutes per day, to jot down your important thoughts and feelings.

Journaling is very likely to help improve your mental health over time, reducing the symptoms of both anxiety and depression, and helping you make better decisions. If it achieves that, won't it massively repay the time investment in writing down your thoughts, feelings and emotions?

10 Journaling Prompts For Depression

If you're right at the beginning of your journaling adventure, you may be looking at a blank sheet of paper in your journal and wondering, "now what"?

A bit like writer's block, you may have a million and one things you want to express, but not know where to start. If that's the case for you, here are some journaling prompts to help you get started.

Please note, these are suggestions. If you feel uncomfortable about doing any of them, feel free to skip that suggestion. There will hopefully be others you like the idea of doing. :-)

1: Write about your day.

I know, this sounds obvious, but think of what happened to you in the day and write down the events that impacted you the most. How did you feel about them? If you had "negative" reactions, why was that? Were you responses proportionate, or disproportionate? For example, did an innocent remark cause unbridled anger in you, or did you burst into floods of tears? If so, it may indicate that a deeper reaction was triggered inside you which may warrant further exploration.

If you journal first thing in the morning you could write about what happened yesterday and how you feel about it now you've slept on it.

2: Write about positives from your day.

After writing about your day, you may have a list of "negative" experiences. That's due to our brain's in-built negativity bias. In order to keep us safe, it pays much more attention to events that are perceived as dangerous than to positive, happy events.

When you're keeping a journal for mental health it's not great to have a list of negative experiences for each day! Be sure to counter your list of negatives with a list of positive events that happened during your day, no matter how small. It could be a beautiful flower you noticed, a particular cloud formation or a friendly smile returned by a stranger.

Just imagining seeing a beautiful flower with its intricate patterns and bold colours makes me feel happier. In fact, I'm going to add a photo of a beautiful flower here, just for us to enjoy for a moment...

Consider the cumulative benefit of writing about several positive experiences each day. If you can't remember many positives, that's a strong indicator that you're missing out on life's simple pleasures. Try to cultivate awareness for each moment and actively look for small positive experiences. You'll be amazed at how many there are when you're actively looking for them. Write about them in your journal for mental health and see how they reduce your anxiety and depression by boosting your happiness and gratitude. Speaking of gratitude...

3: List things you're grateful for.

On the same theme as positive events, list a few things you're grateful for. Again, they don't have to be large events, but simple things like having your favourite cushion supporting your back, your favourite mug containing hot green tea, any experience you had which can be seen as an opportunity to grow (which is all of them!), your pet, the roof over your head, the clothes you're wearing etc.

Being grateful can immediate change your perspective on life, making you more compassionate for people who don't have the things you list, and give you a sense of positivity that your life, while probably not perfect, has a lot going for it.

In this scientific study, scientists looked at subjective well-being, neuroendocrine function and cardiovascular health after just two weeks of performing a "gratitude intervention". Subjects felt better, were more optimistic, had better reported sleep and decreases in diastolic blood pressure. They summarised:

"This brief intervention suggests that subjective well-being may contribute towards lower morbidity and mortality through healthier biological function and restorative health behaviours."

4: List and explore your emotions

A journal for depression wouldn't be complete without writing about your feelings and emotions! What did you feel today? Were you able to clearly distinguish several different emotions, or do you have difficulty knowing what you're feeling and putting emotional labels to feelings?

Try to remember the event from what happened today which you reacted strongest to. How did you feel in your body? Where was the sensation? Did it feel large or small? Did it have a shape, colour, texture, pattern? Write down what you felt and where. If you had to put an emotional label to the feeling what would it be? How did you react to that sensation? Did you want to embrace it, or bury it? How are you reacting to writing about it? Are you OK, or do you want to run and hide? You're safe with your journal. Take a moment to inspect the feeling and the sensations in your body.

By journaling about your emotions you'll be increasing your emotional intelligence and will be more aware of what you're feeling in the future. Repeat the step for your second-most vivid event from the day, and continue as long as you like.

Writing down anything which causes you anxiety can help reduce the worry itself. Consider this scientific study where students wrote down their thoughts about an upcoming exam:

"The intervention, a brief expressive writing assignment that occurred immediately before taking an important test, significantly improved students’ exam scores, especially for students habitually anxious about test taking. Simply writing about one’s worries before a high-stakes exam can boost test scores."

5: Take stock and notice your progress

It's very easy to rush from one moment to the next. When you do that, moments just zoom by in a blur of images, like someone flipping through a pack of cards in front of your eyes. You barely register anything.

Writing in your journal gives you a chance to slow down and take stock, not only of the current day, but of past days and months. We change every minute of every day of every month and year. So how have you changed? Your mental health journal will show you.

When you record your current events, how you felt and how you reacted to them, try to also record how your feelings and reactions have changed. Are you handling the events better? Are they provoking the same degree of anxiety, hopelessness, depression or overwhelm, or are you coping better as a result of journaling and other coping skills you're using?

Doing this will let you see that you're making progress, which will encourage you to keep going and make more progress!

6: Make a list of tasks and your goal

It's very easy to lose sight of our goals behind a flood of tasks which need to be done. When you journal, take a moment to write down your goal. Visualise it and describe it in words. The goal is the destination, the achievement, the desired outcome.

Note: while it's great to have a goal in mind to help motivate you, it's also important not to become too attached to that goal. Intense disappointment can set in if, for whatever reason, the goal isn't achieved. Try to take the benefits of having a goal, without becoming too attached to the actual outcome which can trigger intense "craving-like" feelings.

Now that you've written down your goal and brought it back into focus, write down your next three steps on the path to achieving it. These steps will be your next tasks.

Seeing them as stepping stones on the path to your goal will make it much easier to tackle them than having a list of 50 different tasks creating anxiety in your mind and obscuring the goal itself.

7: Write about a few of your accomplishments

What did you want to get done and achieved? No matter how small it seems, it was important, so write about it. It could've been getting out of bed, or brushing your teeth! If you feel like it, write about what you would like to get done, a small promise to yourself that you'll keep, and how you'll feel after you achieve it. However, don't put pressure on yourself if you don't want to.

Return to your journal after completing whatever the task was and write that you did it. Jot down your feelings. How does it feel in your body to have achieved what you set out to do? This will positively affect your mental health as you reflect on the positivity around achieving something you wanted to get done.

8: Write about an aspect of self-improvement.

Is there something you did today (or will do today) that you'd like to do a bit better?

Again, without pressure, write about how it would feel to improve at whatever activity you chose. Do you need to measure the improvement, like walking more steps in a day, or can it just be subjective, like feeling happier that you got up and went walking? Which works best for you?

After experiencing the improvement, write about how it feels to have improved, not matter how "large" the improvement was. Does it feel how you expected? If not, in what ways is it different? Can you describe the sensations in your body? What emotion do they represent?

Consider tracking your improvement. By writing down your milestones or steps taken you can gain a sense of achievement. However, if you think this will be too much pressure, don't do it.

9: Where would you like to be. Who would you like to be?

Describe your ideal situation in the future.

Is it to be married to a person who complements you, as two wholes coming together to share their lives? Is it to be single, in an apartment with a great view in the city?

Do you have pets? What do you do for a living? What clothes are you wearing?

How does this visualisation make you feel? Are you inspired and motivated? If so, consider how you'll plot a path from where you are now to where you'd like to be. It doesn't have to be intricate, just broad brush strokes.

If you see yourself as a doctor, you're going to have to think about going to medical school at some point. If you see yourself as an artist, you may want to look into getting some paint brushes and watch Bob Ross. :-)

10: Discover more about yourself

This is a bit of a "catch all", but it's still important. When you're journaling, ask yourself some difficult questions to learn about you.

• What films do you like? Why?
• What books do you enjoy? Why?
• What music do you like? Why?
• Where would you like to see? Why?
• Who would you like to meet? Why?
• What would you ask them?

How do you feel about spirituality? Why? Do your beliefs come from within, or outside? If they come from outside, are you comfortable with that, or should you re-evaluate those beliefs? What surprises you, annoys you, excites you, delights you?

Obviously, answering these questions may take a long time, so don't feel overwhelmed or think you need to tackle them all at once. Just see them as potential questions to ask yourself when you're journaling and are wondering what to write about next. You may be surprised at the answers!

11: Journal and track your symptoms

If you're journaling to specifically try to reduce the symptoms of anxiety, depression or another mental health issue, consider keeping track of the severity of your symptoms. After all, if you write in your journal daily, you may as well jot down how you're feeling.

This will work best if you journal at the same time every day, but it doesn't have to be.

Try grading your symptoms out of 10, with 10 being the worst and 1 being the best. You may want to think about how your symptoms were during your day. Try not to get stuck ruminating over anything that went "wrong". See each experience as a lesson to improve your response. Consider how you feel now, and, if possible, compare it to how you felt yesterday.

Initially, this can be quite hard. You may not be sure exactly how you felt today, or how it was relative to yesterday. However, over time you'll get better at grading your symptoms. The important thing is to keep scoring each day as they pass and see if you can spot a trend over time.

Of course, there will be many different things happening daily in your life, which is why it's so hard for science to say, "this works" or "that works" in humans. Our lives are complicated and not amenable to rigorous scientific studies. However, if your mental health symptoms are decreasing over time and you're feeling better, it doesn't really matter why, does it? Keep going!

The Science Of Journaling For Mental Health

For those of you who like things to be backed by science, like me, there's very interesting data to back journaling for mental health.

1: Journaling for anxiety relief

This scientific study from 2007 used "functional magnetic resonance imaging" (fMRI) to see the brain's activity in real time. It showed that people who "labelled" emotions reduced the activity of the amygdala (the brain's early warning system) through activation of another brain region. So putting feelings into words calms the amygdala, a brain region linked to anxiety.

"Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli"

The scientific results are discussed in more detail here. Unfortunately, the science paper itself is behind a paywall. There's a very good 2018 review paper by one of the authors of the original paper, available in full, here. To quote briefly:

"Emerging evidence depicts a surprising kind of emotion regulation: putting feelings into words, an act called “affect labeling,” can itself be a form of implicit emotion regulation. This notion about the benefits of talking about our feelings has existed in various forms including therapy and expressive writing. Only over the past decade has affect labeling been focused upon specifically as a potential form of emotion regulation and tested within the lab".
(my bold, citations removed)

So, for "affective labelling" you can substitute "talking about feelings" or "expressive writing". Both seem to act as a "form of implicit emotion regulation", meaning it works but people don't usually do it for that reason!

Note that "only over the past decade" has science managed to show within the lab (through fMRI) the brain regions that are actually part of this process.

2: Journaling for depression

Journaling has been shown to be helpful for depression. In this scientific study people with depressive symptoms were assigned to groups who either did 4-sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), expressive writing, journaling or bibliotherapy and compared to "waitlist" controls.

With respect to journaling, depressive symptoms fell from pre-test (19.76) to "post-test" (15.46), at 1-month (13.54) and 6-month (10.75) follow-ups. To me, that seems like a strong suggestion that journaling helps with depression. However, I think more robust studies need to be done because depressive symptoms were lower at six months for everything tested, including the waitlist controls, which makes interpretation difficult. Overall, it does seem that journaling was helpful for people with depressive symptoms.

Summary

Journaling is a great daily activity for boosting your mental health and helping you solve problems and challenges as they arise in your life.

Journaling is more than keeping a diary. It's a form of expressive writing, where you can download your thoughts, emotions and feelings to help gain insights about them.

Writing a journal for mental health has several direct benefits, no matter what you actually write. Firstly, you decrease anxiety by writing down your thoughts and feelings which helps process them outside of your mind. Secondly, when you see what you've written you may gain insights into how to address the issues or problems that are bothering you, which again reduces anxiety. Thirdly, seeing the positive steps you can take increases motivation and a sense of agency which pushes away negativity and depression.

What you journal about can also help your mental health, such as writing down things you're grateful for. Gratitude has been show to positively affect how people feel about themselves and the world. Writing down your goals and the tasks needed to reach them can also foster a sense of motivation and ability, again relieving feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness.

Journaling is also inexpensive and something you can do at almost any time. It's therefore one of my "go to" recommendations for people wanting to add to their coping skills for dealing with mental health issues.