With the New Year, it’s a great time to consider our hopes, dreams, and goals. We swear that this year will be different from the last, yet all too quickly we get caught up in the drudgery of daily affairs and forget what we promised ourselves we would do. That’s one reason it’s important to keep a personal journal. Joan Didion, author and journalist was famous for keeping piles of diaries and journals. As a writer it was only natural for her, but for the rest of us, she urged other reasons to keep a personal written record.
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were…
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.”
For some people a journal might be about therapy with entries about illness, divorce, death, or personal strife, while for others a journal might take the form of innovative lists or artistic sketches. Some people might prefer to record their thoughts with audio or video.
Keeping a journal isn’t just handy on an emotional level, it's also beneficial on a physical one too. Elizabeth Broadbent of the University of Auckland in New Zealand led a psychology research study with 49 senior citizens, aged 64-97. She measured the physical benefits of journal writing with them. Half of the group was encouraged to write 20 minutes a day about traumatic events they had experienced while the other half wrote about their plans for the next day, rather than their feelings, opinions and beliefs. Three weeks and several skin biopsies later, she found 76% of the group that had written about trauma had fully healed from the biopsies while only 42% of the latter group had healed. This study certainly leans towards the “better out than in” philosophy where journal writing is a major player.
However if you’re not a natural writer, starting a journal can be tricky. Often it’s all about choosing the right medium to get the emotional or creative juices flowing. Are you more of an analog person or digital?
For old-school journal keepers, there are so many options out there from the classic moleskin to an endless variety of fun notebooks that come with lined pages, graphs, blank sheets and so on. When it comes to pens and pencils the sky is the limit whether you are the ball-point pen type or you prefer colored pencils.
For the more technologically minded, you can open a Word document and just start typing, or if you’d rather ensure that your entries are always accessible via wireless, give the free program, Evernote a try. If you’re all about sharing your thoughts and feelings, maybe blogging is more your speed, in which case you will want to consider blogspot, LiveJournal or WordPress. For those who really don’t enjoy writing no matter the medium, a video journal or video blog is a great alternative.
Journal writing is also about holding a routine. It doesn’t have to be every day, but schedule time to write and make it a non-negotiable task in your life. Try writing right before bed to help decompress and reflect on the day. Some prefer to write in the morning, while others just keep the journal in their pocket for stray ideas. Whatever you decide to do, make sure to at least try the medium and see how well it benefits you.
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