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Journaling can help calm the mind, establish a creative outlet and track physical needs, feelings, emotions and problems in ways that can ultimately help you sleep better. Here are 6 different journal styles to try.
Many people turn to journal writing to process thoughts, emotions and feelings. With good reason, it turns out: Science supports the numerous health benefits of journaling. Dozens of studies reviewed in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment show journaling helps everything from reducing doctor visits to lessening depression and improving memory.
You don't see yourself writing page after page in your diary? That's okay, there are as many different ways of journaling as there are notebooks, ledgers, apps and bound books to use.
In this article, we cover:
What to Expect from Journaling
Gratitude Journals
Problem-solving Journals
Feelings or Traditional Journals
Visual Journals
Dream Journals
Sleep Journals
Crunching the Data
Read on to find out which journaling style could be right for you.
The benefits of journaling go beyond capturing your thoughts and making you healthier.
“The act of writing can bring clarity," says Charlynn Ruan, a licensed clinical psychologist at Thrive Psychology in Los Angeles. When you write, you begin to release your thoughts. Think of it as making space for new ideas to appear.
Using a journal as therapy can help you learn more about yourself and help you prepare for future hardships. Reflecting in this way can enable us to gauge the emotional impact we have on ourselves and those around us and help us recover from life's stumbles like a breakup, job loss or death.
“Many clients look back at their journals at a later date to gain clarity on certain seasons," Ruan says.
A divorcee, for example, "might look back at journals they kept during the marriage and see red flags they missed and identify ways they've grown as a person, and this gives them comfort that they will make a better choice in their next relationship."
Ruan says journaling works best when it isn't used just for venting and rumination, but also includes happy times, gratitude and countering negative thoughts with positive alternatives. You can also use journaling to spot different habits or patterns in your life, and how they affect your wellbeing and sleep.
A Gratitude Journal is an excellent vehicle to test the journal-writing waters, since it's a positive, supportive and non-demanding way to track your days.
This type of journaling involves a notebook or ledger where you write down daily things you are grateful for. You can also use your computer, tablet or smartphone. The quickest way to start is to jot down a single thing you're grateful for.
“A slightly more involved way to journal your blessings is to challenge yourself to write three to five things you're grateful for each day," offers Cheryl Lynch Simpson, career coach and journaling instructor at Ed2go.com.
You may be tempted to jot down the same things every day, Simpson says. “I'm grateful for my home, my family and food on the table" are common entries. But this kind of repetition can get boring.
So zero in on details that inspire you, make you laugh or smile, or touch you in some way, like:
The beautiful flowers on the way to work
The glass of wine enjoyed with my spouse
The compliment my sister gave me today
You'll start to notice a heightened awareness of the moments you want to add to your gratitude journal — a kindness shown to you, a funny thing your child said or a random moment you might have otherwise overlooked.
One study in the journal Applied Psychology found is that people who practice gratitude could quiet their minds and sleep better than those who didn't.
It may be because gratitude is a healing emotion that refocuses your attention from what you don't have to what you do, Simpson points out.
Explore Different Styles of Gratitude Journaling
Gratitude journaling gives you a daily infusion of positive thinking and helps you exercise your optimism, instead of focusing on the negative.
Blessings jar: Write down something you're thankful for every day on a small piece of paper and store it in a gratitude or blessings jar. It's fun and revealing to go through the jar and pull out random snippets to remind yourself of all you're grateful for. Doing so can especially help you get through a tough day.
Free writing: Free-writing gratitude journaling tracks not only gratitude, but what you're grateful for that you don't have yet, but want. Write anywhere from five to 10 sentences on a blank page of paper sharing what you're grateful to have now.
“After that, sprinkle in gratitude statements about what you don't have yet (but pretend you do)," suggests Maddy Moon, a speaker, coach and retreat leader. The idea is that sending out positive messages about the things you want to happen — a promotion or move to a new city — releases them to the universe, helping you manifest them.
Right-hand/left-hand journaling: Claudia Matles, a certified wellness instructor, has clients write “What are you grateful for?" in the hand they write with. They then write their response with the opposite hand. Using the non-dominant hand forces you to respond from a more fragile, authentic place since writing this way takes focus and concentration, and forces you out of your comfort zone.
Woo-hoo moments: Record only your woo-hoo or yahoo moments of the day — things you did well, that made you smile or feel proud, says Kimberly Hershenson, a therapist based in New York City. “The emotional release can help improve stress and anxiety."
Problem-Solving Journal — Write to Heal
Regular journaling can help you relive events and circumstances in a safe space, without fear or stress. Writer Ernest Hemingway once said about his typewriter: “Portable Corona number 3. That's my analyst."
James Pennebaker's landmark work on healing writing is responsible for much of what we know today about journaling's effect on health and wellbeing. He found that students who wrote about traumatic events developed greater immunity to disease than students who journaled about trivial topics.
Pennebaker and others later discovered that writing about happy experiences also improved health. Hence, everything in your life experience is fodder for journaling.
Write about you. For example, "I felt like this when that happened, and here's what I thought about it."
Write about things you notice. For instance, "today I noticed this happening and it got me thinking about … "
Write as if you are talking to a secret best friend. As children, we may have written “Dear Diary," because the diary was our secret listener.
Use a prompt, especially if you can't think of what to say. Prompts include phrases like, "the most unusual thing that happened to me," "the worst day ever," or "my favorite pet was ... "
Let the ideas flow. Resist the urge to create a polished piece, Pennebaker advises in his book "Opening Up by Writing It Down. " Forget about grammar, spelling and punctuation. You are the only audience here." The point is to get feelings, emotions, experiences and thoughts from your brain to the page.
“The power of journaling is not just in the writing but in the reading later," says Kevin Huhn, an inspirational speaker focused on personal and business growth.
The takeaway: Keeping a journal may help you solve problems and learn more about yourself. You may even find that journaling improves your sleep and mitigates worries and anxieties that can keep you awake at night.
If you have dismissed journaling because you can feel your fingers cramping up just thinking about it, you can rejoice: Journaling isn't only for words. A picture/visual journal offers a creative way to explore journaling, inspiring your brain to work in ways that are very different from writing.
“It can be freeing to work in different mediums, without worrying about whether we are good at it, and to just have fun," says Kate Orson, a creative writing teacher and author.
Visual journaling uses photos, sketches, maps or images to record the highs (or lows) of your day, what you're grateful for, or feelings you're trying to process.
In the same way you might write about what's bothering you, using a visual journal lays the foundation for those emotions with pictures.
Why Journal This Way?
Visual journals provide a way to express yourself wordlessly, which may benefit people who find writing difficult, or who communicate their feelings more effectively through shape and color.
“The rules of language and logic don't apply," says Maureen Clancy, a holistic psychotherapist in Somerville, New Jersey.
She says there's freedom in expressing yourself this way. A picture, sketch, scribble or coloring can convey worry, happiness, fear or sadness.
“I definitely feel lighter after a session of visual journaling … like I've let something go," Clancy notes. One easy way to start is to keep a visual journal for one week.
How to Create a Visual Journal
Collage: Combine photos or clippings that represent your day. Start by looking through magazines. Cut out images that spark your attention. “Don't overthink it," advises Clancy.
Arrange your images on the page or in your journal. See what themes emerge. You can collage-journal weekly or pick a single image per day that captures something that resonates. A family gathered cozily around a fireplace may indicate you're craving the same warmth, for instance. Reviewing your images over time can tell you a lot about how you were feeling or what you were thinking.
Photos: Photography can be an easy and fulfilling way to chronicle your life and create more mindfulness.
“When you set a goal of capturing five images a day to share what happened, it puts you in a space of paying more attention to what you're doing and where you're doing it," says Mike Peyzner of Choco Studio, a husband-and-wife wedding photography studio in the San Francisco area.
Creating images to document your life only takes a minute but can instill a sense of purpose and intention. Having a photo of some aspect of your day can help you focus on what's important to you.
“You'll catch yourself spending less time doing mindless things like staring at your smartphone and more time carefully choosing how to spend your day," Peyzner adds.
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest can offer simple ways to track daily photos. You can also get feedback from your friends and followers and keep yourself accountable as you publicly state your intention to post a new image every day. Take a few photos daily to document your most important activities, advises Peyzner. Later, you can review your timeline and revisit those memories.
Sketch: You don't need artistic talent to create a sketch journal. All you need is a sketchbook and a theme for each page. If you enjoy doodling, lettering or scrapbooking, you may find sketch journaling enjoyable. Some people stick cards, receipts and scraps of paper from their day to the page and draw around those.
When you sketch, you experience feelings about life events in new ways. Sketching also helps you preserve memories. Don't try to make it pretty. Rather, concentrate on capturing moments, ideas and feelings using your creative muscle. Date your sketches and periodically flip through them to gauge what you were going through.
Personal Mapping: Erin Jourdan Berrios, owner of MemoirClass, a business helping people write their life stories, uses personal mapping to discover aspects of memory and unveil subconscious feelings.
“A map calms us. It gives us a sense of place in a chaotic world, a path to orient ourselves," says Berrios.
To make a personal map, sit down with a blank journal page or piece of paper and set a timer for 25 minutes. Sketch, scribble and write snippets of text or favorite quotes with a specific topic in mind: happiness, hopes and dreams, an event, challenges you face. The point is to create a destination.
Maps help you see information in a new way, Berrios explains. Creating and reviewing the images you use in your map can help suggest explanations that may reassure, inspire or lead you to ask more questions about your destination.
If you want to map gratitude, for example, your page may be full of the things you're grateful for right now — family, fulfilling work, your garden. If you're mapping your frustration with a person or issue, your map would reflect the resolution you seek.
Maybe sketch the person, include a favorite quote about how to move forward, or ways you could resolve things — chatting, writing a letter, going to dinner. Anything is fodder for your personal map.
The takeaway: Visual journaling adds a layer of fun and creativity to your memories and emotions. Experiment with various types until you find the one that feels right for you.
Remember the "Bridget Jones's Diary" novels and movies? A single, lonely British woman tries to improve herself by writing in her diary. There's merit in what she did.
Brain scans show that writing helps the brain regulate emotions, thus making you feel better. Scientists dub this the “Bridget Jones effect." Journaling about your feelings may help you better connect with all the thoughts inside your head and heart.
“Through the course of the day, the average person has countless thoughts, experiences, emotions and numerous intentions. In the mind, these can be quickly processed and set aside for later action, and frequently forgotten," says Judi Cinéas, a psychotherapist and author of Attitude Adjustment: Keys to Living Life on Your Terms.
When you journal how you feel — regretful, remorseful, elated or nostalgic, for instance — you can examine the feelings more, and assess causes and solutions.
Maybe you're feeling remorseful for the way an argument played out with a family member, or nostalgic for a time in your life when you were more content. Writing about these feelings can open up a wider understanding of why you may feel this way, and what you can do about it.
For example, would you feel better if you apologized to the family member? Should you join a spinning class again because it made you feel so good when you used to do it?
How to Write About Your Feelings
Journal writing varies and there's no wrong way. Some people journal to be more mindful about their daily feelings. Others write about the reasons behind their feelings and what they can do about them. To journal about how you feel, you might consider the following:
Start with an intro line of "Today I felt ... "
How do you feel about what's going on in your life?
Write stream-of-consciousness style without editing your thoughts or grammar to see what feelings come to the surface.
Write down achievements and failures — how do you feel about them?
Note any big questions you have about life, then write down how you feel about the answers.
How Can Journaling Show You How You Feel?
Journaling about your feelings can help you see patterns in thoughts and behaviors. If you're always writing about money trouble, you might realize you're anxious about your financial situation. Constantly journaling about work-related stress may help reveal that your depression is linked to your job.
The takeaway: Even if you think your experiences are dull, writing them down unearths a cache of other thoughts, ideas and memories that clue you in to how you're feeling and why.
We all dream. Dreams are fodder for wild or scary scenarios, and recording your dreams is an archeological dig into what's going on in your waking world.
According to Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, a professional dream analyst and author of Dream on It: Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life, dream journaling provides insight into your daily behavior, thoughts and feelings.
“Journaling dreams allows you to open up a dialogue with the other side of your mind. Once you make that a habit, you and your dreams become partners in helping you live the life you are meant to live," says Loewenberg.
What's the Point of Recording Dreams?
Our dreams help us understand ourselves, our behavior and our lives on a deeper level.
“Sometimes, just the act of writing them [down] lets me unlock a dream's hidden meaning," notes Maureen Calamia, a Feng shui expert, who uses dream work in her personal life and with clients. She uses Dream Moods dream dictionary to look up meanings and major dream symbolism. “Then I can see how it might be related to a current challenge in my life and what my potential next step should be."
Loewenberg says dreams tend to be a continuation of our thoughts from the day, but since the brain works differently while we are in REM dream sleep, we think in symbols and metaphors rather than the literal, linear thinking of daytime.
People can usually connect a dream to something from yesterday, from a conversation or to something that happened to them.
If you dreamed of being attacked by a bear, for example, you may find that you wrote in your day journal that your mother-in-law came over for dinner and criticized your cooking.
If you review previous entries, you may find you dream of being shot, attacked or chased whenever you interact with your mother-in-law. This pattern would show you feel uneasy with that relationship.
How to Keep a Dream Journal
Writing your dreams down in a notebook or journal kept on your bedside table is the best way to begin. That half-asleep state when you first wake, when your mind remains fuzzy, but you still remember the dream, is the best time to get it down.
“Write down as much as you can remember right away. If you don't have time, write a few key words that will remind you," Loewenberg suggests.
Date each dream and give it a title based on something that occurred, like “ugly monster chasing me," or “lost hiking through the forest." Then describe the dream — the more detail, the better.
Often, seemingly insignificant things like what you were wearing or who was chasing you are noteworthy. Record how you thought and felt in the dream — scared, happy, worried.
You can even start a journal retroactively by writing down the earliest dream you can remember, or a couple of stand-out dreams from childhood that have stuck with you over the years. Voilà! You've started a dream journal.
Connecting the dots and finding patterns is the key to dream work. Loewenberg recommends keeping a dream journal in tandem with a day journal, to "help you connect the dots between the content of your day and the imagery in your dreams at night," she says.
She recommends intertwining the two — daytime thoughts on the left side of the page, dreams on the right.
Another important rule is that emotions you feel in the dream may be directly connected to that same emotion in your real life. If the outstanding emotion in your dream is frustration, maybe consider the most frustrating thing you are dealing with right now in real life.
And finally, remember that your dreams symbolize you, or some part of your life. Dreaming about the class clown from seventh grade is really about you, not about the class clown. Ask yourself how you or someone close to you is acting like that class clown.
The takeaway: Dreams are mysterious, magical and perplexing — but no matter what you dream, dream journaling may help you understand yourself more.
Sleep is critical to your overall health and wellbeing. However, many people aren't connecting what happens during the day to their night — and vice versa.
Keeping a sleep diary may be just what your bedtime routine needs to help your mind, body and soul perform their best. After all, sleep isn't just for the eight hours you're asleep; it's also for the 16 hours you're awake.
What Is a Sleep Diary?
There are a few ways to approach writing about your sleep habits. You can free write in a journal, or use a sleep tracking app, like found in the SleepIQ® technology inside Sleep Number® beds.
The Sleep Number® bed with SleepIQ® technology inside tracks how well you sleep each night, giving you personal insights into your sleep. Your perfect Sleep Number® setting? Best sleep hours for you? It even connects to your favorite health and wellness apps, so you'll learn how life affects your sleep, and how sleep affects your life. These insights help put you in better control of your sleep.
Pick Your Sleep Journal Entry Style
You can free write diary-style: “Last night I slept average, had several bad dreams, possibly due to my late dinner. Had soda at 2 p.m. but that was my only caffeine."
Or you can make a chart to record the basics such as:
Day of Week: Workday, weekend or vacation
Caffeine: Coffee, cola or tea, and time of day
Medication
Alcohol
Exercise and time of day you worked out
Sleep and wake times
Quality of sleep, on a scale from 1-5
Thoughts and worries before bed
Reap the Benefits of a Sleep Journal
According to Sleep Number, journaling can reduce stress, calm the mind and help recognize detrimental sleep habits. If you're not sleeping well, discovering why may be as easy as writing in your sleep diary.
Recognize habits. Writing down thoughts, worries and sleep quality (including dreams, length of sleep, how many times you are restless) can help you to recognize habits and patterns in your sleep that need some work. For instance, if you wake frequently in the night, it may be time to play around with bedroom temperature, consider getting a new pillow, covers or mattress, cut caffeine after noon, or stop reading the news on your phone or tablet in bed.
Reduce stress. When we're anxious, cortisol — a stimulant — is released into our bloodstream. It's like having a shot of espresso before sleeping. Journaling about daily stressors an hour before bed can reduce the anxieties and worries that keep us up at night.
Release outcomes. Journaling can help release issues keeping us awake. Take an event that's bothering you, like tomorrow's big meeting. Consider, in the journal, what might happen and how you'll deal with anything negative. This provides a plan of action to release the worry, rather than dwelling on any potential problems and having it interfere with sleep.
Use technology. Embedded apps, like SleepIQ® technology inside Sleep Number smart beds, can provide insight into sleep quality, duration, restlessness and more, especially alongside actively keeping a journal.
When paired with a sleep journal, the user will have nearly double the information, including their holistic sleep data, thoughts, feelings and dreams. For this reason it's recommended to keep a journal even if you're using an embedded app. Seeing it in two places may help make the connections more obvious to you, to help confirm what is and isn't helping you get your best quality slumber.
The takeaway: Keeping track of your habits before bed and your sleep quality helps you identify patterns and make meaningful changes.
Crunching the Data
Regardless of how you choose to journal, what's most important is the data itself and what you learn from it — spotting trends and habits, and pinpointing trouble areas that, if fixed, could improve your sleep quality.
For example, if you notice you sleep poorly when you have caffeine, you could drop that afternoon soda, and see if you sleep better. Perhaps working out too close to bedtime is a culprit. Try moving your exercise time earlier to see if sleep improves.
Since you track your sleep, you'll be able to see what works and what doesn't.
Happy journaling.
Like diet and exercise, quality sleep is essential for optimal wellbeing and performance. Because everyone's sleep needs are different, Sleep Number® smart beds sense your movements and automatically adjust firmness, comfort and support to keep you both sleeping comfortably. Find your Sleep Number® setting for your best possible night's sleep, and if you own a Sleep Number® bed, log in to your Sleep Number® Rewards account to see your exclusive offers, refer friends and more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Nelson is a Florida-based health writer who writes about all things sleep hygiene. She writes for The National Sleep Foundation, Phillips, Tom's Guide, Southern Living, Health, AARP and others.
