Does Journaling Actually Work? (Journaling 101)

In this video, we'll delve into the underlying principles that make journaling an effective and powerful tool, while also exploring the fundamental concepts behind initiating and maintaining a journaling practice.

Journaling is a timeless practice known for its numerous benefits, yet understanding why it works can amplify its impact. We'll dissect the psychological and emotional mechanisms that make journaling an effective means of self-expression, reflection, and personal growth.

Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health explores Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, and Meditation

▼ Timestamps ▼
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00:00 - Introduction
01:25 - Coaching CTA
02:09 - Avoiding your problems
05:09 - Building a narrative
10:30 - Identifying problems
11:41 - The right way to journal
15:54 - Conclusion

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DISCLAIMER

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All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.

#healthygamergg #lifeadvice #journaling

[sarcasticserpent]

I have a theory that journaling is "Rubber Ducky Debugging" but for yourself.

There's a code debugging method, called "Rubber Ducky Debugging" - when a programmer is stuck on a problem with their code, they will take a rubber ducky and start explaining what the code does to it, line by line, assuming (rightfully so) that the rubber ducky knows nothing about programming. When they see that what they say doesn't match with the code, or when they struggle to explain something, they now know that's the part they have to dig deeper into.

I think this happens with journaling, too. The journal is your rubber ducky, and you're telling it your side of the story, but then you feel like maybe it doesn't know something you assume to be obvious so you clarify things to it, and you add disclaimers, and you struggle to word things that you might feel deep down are not right (like it's always being *them/people*, for example). So you start changing that. And then the code works :)

[nadine]

“No one has the attention span and dedication to read through the amateur fan fiction autobiography that is your life, ” 💀
Always been paranoid about people reading my journal so thanks for the reality check, Dr. K

[casualnerdjason]

I'll be honest: Journaling has been more useful to me than working with a therapist. Doing both is amazing and I highly recommend it. However, journaling is way more easily accessible and you can start today.

Please if you haven't given it a shot, just get a notebook, a pen, and choose to fill out one page with literally any of your thoughts TODAY.

[innthemiddleofthestorm]

Its absolutely insane this high level of psychological thought and advice is just available for free. Thank you for all you've done, and all the people you continue to help.

[lilymulligan]

As an avid lifelong journaler, here's my pro tip:

Invest in the physical experience of writing. Find pens you love, use ink in fun colors, buy expensive notebooks with fancy paper. The more enjoyable the experience is, the more likely you'll be to stick with the habit.

Also, don't be afraid to try new things. You're not locked into one format. Got a lined notebook, but you wanna try a dot grid next? Do it! Want to incorporate drawings into your entries? Go for it! The only rule is that there are no rules.

Personally, I write using fountain pens on blank looseleaf paper that's designed for fountain pen writing (Tomoe river brand). When I'm done, I file my entry away into a file folder. But it took years of experimentation for me to land on this format.

[sharonfieldstone]

Used to journal all the time growing up. My mom would find and read my entries and tell my dad what she read, even if it was about him, or get angry at me or awkward when I got older if she caught me writing and I didn't let her read it. It's created a ton of baggage for me. But from all the benefits you've listed I think I'm going to try it again.

[JBitzz]

My roommate read my journal and later used it against me. She said I didn't mention a traumatizing experience I had in my journal, and therefore it didn't happen. I stopped being friends with her, but it still makes me cautious about journaling.

[Lukasek_Grubasek]

Nowdays I have over 200 entries in my journal and I can tell you all one thing: Nobody will ever read it and the more you do it the more you realise that's the case. Even when someone walked into my room while I was journaling it always went something like:
"Whatcha doin?"
"Writing"
"Writing what? Why?"
"Words"
"Can I see?"
"No"
"Ok" *walks away*
So don't be afraid to do it. I remember I was scared as shit when I first started out.
And also: Number your entries because it will feel amazing when you get to something like day 100 and you can look back at how different of a person you were before.

[kizue]

Something I’ve started doing in my journal that I find really helpful is to track positive things I’ve done for myself each day, like meditating, journaling, making art and exercising. Rather than have one check box per item per day (meditated on Monday, did not meditate on Tuesday etc. - which also ends up highlighting the days on which I “fail” to meditate) I just note down all of the positive things I did that day in one box in a yearly overview spread (Monday 6 Feb: exercised and journaled; Tuesday 7 Feb: journaled, etc.) to show myself that I do work towards my goals, since a lot of my negative self-talk centres on how I “never do anything productive”.

[trcherrera]

As an Asian kid who grew up poor in a developing country where stress and mental health wasn’t just a thing in the 90s, this is so true. I kindof agree that my siblings and I survived a dysfunctional upbringing from a controlling mother and an emotionally detached father who values pride, saving face, hard work and success like no other.
As an introvert, journaling was my escape as well as my refuge. I started in sophomore high school till before I graduated college. I wrote so much about my pain, my questions, things Ive read, quotes, poems, Bible verses, letters to my crushes, letters to my future husband and about traumas and abuse i have never even shared to anyone. I did not think of it as therapeutic at that time but when I was in medical school and no longer journaling I kindof miss it and realized that it was therapeutic and restorative as well as transformative. Ive survived my struggles as a teenager because of journaling and wish I never stopped the activity.

[gnk-hrik]

journaling:
- increases grade
- improves physical health
- helps us not avoid our problems & face them
- might work as exposure therapy; accustoms to discomfort & be more perceptive & resilient
- helps construct narrative → realize new insights from another perspectives
- be consistent: 15min+, as frequent as possible
- journal about emotions
- read your journal sometimes
- physical journaling is recommended

[marreco]

Honestly Dr.K, I vastly prefer journaling over meditation. Meditation puts me at ease, but writing my thoughts down is what truly made me review my priorities and organize my mind.

[Ryan]

I read my old entries, and some of the older ones read like the inner monologue of someone who viscerally hates themselves and is physically sickened by themselves. Even the handwriting is hateful. And some of the more recent ones read like someone who is realising how unreasonable they’re being and is trying to reframe. And stepping back into the hateful headspace is scary stuff. I remember vividly what it felt like and to read about it just reminds me how much has changed and how much I have to be grateful for. It helps me see patterns and actually break them. I can begin to use journaling to tell my brain that it can learn and grow even if things suck. To actually gather evidence that says I’m not a crapy person.

[nathanreidart]

Journaling tip if you're worried about ruining a notebook or don't have a notebook: just use lined paper. put it in a stack. my current journal is 200 pages of lined paper sitting on a shelf near my bed because the notebook i purchased for journaling made a pressure of "what if what i want to write down isn't important enough to use a page for" but I'll write pretty much anything on a $0.001 cent sheet of paper. One sheet is just the date and "made soup today. it turned out good." and that's it lol

[SomeUserThatCommentsRarely]

I had a very strong inner critic and developed this "journaling technique" to let go of these thoughts. If you have this as well I would strongly recommend trying this out:

I call it "The Inner Dialogue" (fancy, I know). Take a peace of paper and a pen.
We always start with the inner critic. He probably has something bad to say about what you did or didn't do. So for this example I use that the inner critic says I always miss the gym although this time the excuse for not going is valid (e.g. being really sick). One thing before we start:
Always write in the first person plural ("we") as the inner critic is part of you and I found out the issue he is having will be resolved a lot easier with this little trick.

The important part is that you write everything exactly and as worse as your inner critic puts it on your paper. It may or may not be very emotional. In my example it would look like this:

Inner Critic: What a complete load of sh*t! We always miss the gym. We can't even manage to go to the gym because we're oh so "sick". Hahaha, yeah. No wonder we are still fat. Look at our friends, they so much better... (etc. etc.)

You get the point. Again, it's very important that you don't suppress something or hold back. Write is as your voice tells you how it thinks it is. All emotions need to get out of your system because only then we can go to the next step and being rational.

Second step:
Now we get to the fun part. You have an inner critic. But did you know you also have an "inner friend"? This is the guy that holds by your side, wants the best for you and is not controlled by emotions. I called it "The Inner Dialog" because your inner friend will now answer to your inner critic. This (for my example) can look something like this (and I will continue this dialog a little bit to show you how the issue of the inner critic could be resolved):

Inner Friend: Wow, wow, wow... hold up. So you are saying going to the gym with 40°C/104°F fever is managable??

Inner critic: Well.. we always miss the gym. Don't you see it?

Inner Friend: Last time we should have gone to the gym. I will give you that. But this time, no way. This wouldn't benifit us in any way and it would probably get worse.

Now we enter the "resolution" stage. The inner friend will give the inner critic a solution to the problem. In my experience, the inner critic most of the time accepts this (and if not just continue the dialog to resolve the issue further) as we let him have a voice.

Inner Friend: Look, first we heal from this fever and then we will go to the gym asap. How does that sound?

Now, if you skip the gym lesson again because of laziness then the issue of the inner critic is valid and you should listen to it. This technique is mostly for things your inner critic demands that are way to extreme. With this way you (hopefully) can calm him down and reason with him and maybe even improve something in your life.

Hope this helps someone out there!

[vegigun]

My dad introduced me to journaling when I was 18. He has written two hand-written pages per day, five days a week, for over 20 years now and continues even though he's retired. After he finishes writing, he puts the journal pages directly into the paper recycling.
I did it 5-ish days a week for my first two years of college. It was immensely helpful for me in reconnecting with my emotions. Then I stopped for 10+ years.
During the pandemic, I started journaling once a week because I needed an emotional outlet for the stress.
After your Alexithymia(?) 101 video, I started journaling 6-7 nights per week before bed. A few weeks in, I realized that I will probably benefit from journaling like that for the rest of my life, and knowing that feels good. I feel like I've made more progress on issues that have been bugging me in the last 4 months than I have in the last 6 years. Journaling is deceptively difficult and frustrating, however I think it is worth it.

[akilasultana]

I think the reason why journalling helps is because by writing down feelings etc on paper physically, in a way we are learning to accept the REALITY of what we experience.

It’s easy to feel stuff or experience stuff and dissociate from how uncomfortable it makes us, or get swept away with other stuff to do before having processed those emotions or experiences.

So by journaling we in a way give our experience and feelings more reality and that in turn helps us process what we’re writing about.

[elezibethmorgan]

Benefit 243: looking at a stack of your own journals, you realize how much time you spend thinking and worrying about stuff that’s in there, , and realize you’re out of your own mind. Perspective.

[Sierra]

A hybrid of bullet journalling, daily planner and diary entries over a few years has helped me and my psychiatrist get a proper diagnosis. I used it as mainly a wholistic data collection tool that helped spot things we missed before.

[Princessbubblegum]

I think it's important to mention HOW you journal is the key. When I first started Journaling I thought it was stupid and useless because I'd write really meangingless stuff and what I did throughout the day. However, when I started Journaling as a way to advise myself as if I'm talking to a friend, it became super helpful.