How to Journal? It's Simple- Just Be Yourself!

Technology is such an integral part of our lives. It is now our natural reflex to use our phones first thing in the morning. We get a head start on the day by checking our entire schedule on our devices - and it makes sense. The age of sticky notes haunting us, with to-do lists carefully stuck on the refrigerator or written appointments in our diaries with its pages falling out, are almost obsolete. However, the art of writing is not completely lost as we still like to write down thoughts and feelings regarding life events - the art of journaling.

Journaling is more than just lengthy paragraphs, it is an outlet for stress, excitement, good or bad news and a productive way to process many things. Simply stated, journaling is good for health, emotional well-being and cognitive processes. Some benefits include:

1. Stress Reduction - Research has shown that journaling events and thoughts can lessen the impact of stressors on physical health. It helps lower blood pressure and helps manage stress in a healthy way.

2. Keeps Memory Sharp - Journaling helps keep your brain active. Not only does it boost memory and comprehension, it also increases memory capacity, which allows for improved emotions and interpersonal communication.

3. Mood Stabilizer - Giving words to your feelings and putting it down helps boost your mood and your overall sense of well-being. That’s why journaling became famous in the first place! Many famous and successful people journal, as it dramatically improves their quality of life.

4. Reduces Depression and Anxiety symptoms - Writing down thoughts and feelings can help reduce negative emotions and feelings, associated with a particular event or situation, for example an exam or interview. Often seeing something in black and white makes the absolute fear of it so much less.

However, starting a new good habit is not always easy! The trick lies in simply starting - now. Write a phrase or word - for example, daughters graduation or overtime at work, had my fav pancakes for breakfast, etc. Do not preoccupy yourself with managing perfect punctuation, grammar, or spelling. Just write and do not censor yourself. Be uniquely you, and get your events, feelings and thoughts down somewhere! Journaling helps connect dots between feelings and behaviour and helps one keep perspective. In addition, it can help in the management of personal adversity and allow for change through the emphasis of important patterns and growth in life.

What do we do at Behavidence?

Behavidence was founded to help people with the diagnosis, monitoring and therapy of mental health conditions. Behavidence has a JOURNAL feature, which allows you to highlight all your varying emotions, good and bad.You can simply add, edit or delete statements that you want to journal and then view them along with your app usage and frequency patterns. This will give you good insight as to when you are more or less stressed and what triggers these emotions. Journaling enables you to follow the healthy or unhealthy patterns in your thought processes and link them to events and even digital behaviours.

GO JOURNAL!

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