How I Journal for my Mental Health

In a currently chaotic world, anything that improves your mental health is worth doing. For me, that's recently become journaling. Growing up, I always used to keep a daily diary. As a child, I would write a few sentences each day before I went to sleep about my day. I'm so grateful to my younger self for doing that, as now I have amazing experiences that I can read about, and it helps to trigger my memory for things that I may have forgotten.

Recently, I've been journaling a lot more because I find it so therapeutic. It's always helpful for me to make a cuppa, sit down and spend 10 mins writing things down in a beautiful notebook with my coloured pens. Some people won't find this helpful at all, but some people will! Therefore, if you want to try journaling but don't know where to start, or you're just interested in how I journal, in this post I'll tell you what each of my notebooks is for and how I use it to improve my mental health.

General Diary

This is my super secret diary that I use to write all my thoughts down. This is the notebook that no-one knows exist, even the people I live with. I've chosen a beautiful notebook where the cover of it instantly gave me joy as soon as I saw it. I started writing in this specific diary in 2017 after finishing my others, and I use it to write down all of my thoughts. The good, the bad and the ugly. I don't enjoy telling people about my emotions or my problems as that's not how I am able to cope with them. Which is ironic, considering I'm a psychological practitioner who's job wouldn't exist if people didn't tell me their problems. But everyone's different, and I think that because I spend all day supporting people with their problems, I prefer to jot mine down in a diary and leave them at that. There's no specific schedule to writing in this diary; I write as and when I feel like it.

Happy Thoughts

Every Sunday evening, before I go to sleep, I always write down 5 happy thoughts from the previous week. It's simply a numbered list of 5 things that made me smile. This is a really quick and easy way to look back on previous weeks and it's a good summary. It also helps you to find positive things in a week that perhaps wasn't too good. Different to the general diary, this book has NO negativity at all. My Happy Thoughts journal is purely 5 positive things from each week, encouraging you to find the small little things that bring you joy. I started this in 2019 and have written in it every Sunday since, I'm onto my second notebook as I completed my first one!

Mental Health To-Do List

I have a weekly planner which is similar to a to-do list, but for my mental health. Don't get me wrong, I have my general to-do list which I keep at my work desk and see every day to complete my mundane tasks, but this to-do list is specifically for things I enjoy doing. It helps me to schedule in something every single day that makes me happy, even if it's only something small on busy days. This means that even in a bad day, I can schedule in 5 minutes to do something I enjoy.

Work Reflections

I have a work reflections notebook which I only just started recently in my new job. Because I meet so many new people every day and hear so many different life stories, I like to write and reflect on the experiences that have resonated with me or changed me in some way, or just the ones I would like to remember. Don't worry - everything written in here is COMPLETELY anonymised in case anyone accidentally reads this, no patient confidentiality will be breached here. Each patient I treat shapes me as a person, therefore I like to document the ones which helped me grow personally and professionally. It's also useful for me to bring this notebook to my clinical supervision in case I need a second opinion on an appropriate treatment pathway, or need a bit of support for particularly difficult cases.

It's super easy to start journaling. Get some coloured pens and nice notebook and you're good to go! And don't worry if you don't stick something out; there's been so many ways of journaling that haven't worked for me and I felt so guilty for not completing the notebook. If something doesn't work for you, then try something else. It's also completely normal to take breaks from this sometimes. There's been months in my diary where I haven't written at all, and then there's been times where I've written every day! The great thing about journaling is that it's completely up to you on how you'd like to do it. So take it easy, and do whatever is best for your mental health.

-bunnydiver.