“Downloading all my mental noise on to the page is a must for me before I go to sleep, and sometimes also if I wake in the night. A nice excuse to treat yourself to a new notebook too!”
Love, Olivia x
How does journaling work?
Process your thoughts & experiences, regulate your emotions
Boost memory, mood, wellbeing & self-awareness
Reduce stress, boost creativity & manage change
Writing down our thoughts can help us process and regulate emotion in a different way from just thinking or speaking about how we feel. Handwriting in a journal slows the thoughts down as they travel down your arm and on to the page. And once you see it there in black and white, you can gain a fresh perspective and sometimes a big ‘a-ha!’.
No-one has to read it, and it doesn’t have to make any sense – there really is no right or wrong. It’s just a place to put your thoughts so that they don’t have to fizz and bang and scream around your head quite so much.
Here are five of our favourite journal prompts to get you started. If you don’t feel like writing anything down, that’s ok, maybe have a read of the questions anyway and see if anything comes up for you.
1. The best and hardest parts of my day, and why
2. A relationship in my life that I’d like to nurture. Why and how.
3. Things that help me feel calm, present and at ease
4. Things that challenge, scare and worry me
5. Things that my friends and supporters praise and love me for
Sometimes you just need one prompt to spark pages of download. Sometimes it’s a bit harder to find the words. But the hardest part can be just sitting down to pick up the pen. So have a go, just for 5 or 10 mins a day, and see where these starters take you.