Why You Should Have A Journaling Practice

As time goes by, thoughts naturally start to pile up in our minds and our attention revolves around them, building up our stress and overall discomfort. Journaling is like opening a valve to release the mental pressure they create.

The main issue I’ve found with repetitive thoughts is that they work in a sort of “circular” fashion: you think about something and your inner monologue advances a bit, but at some point, you find yourself back at the beginning repeating the exact same monologue to yourself.

Fictional example:

“I must have this conversation on Monday, otherwise I’ll lose the opportunity. What a pain in the ass is to have that conversation, I wish I could avoid it. Can I avoid it? Maybe if I did X I could at least remove some of the discomfort. [Thinks in ways to avoid the conversation…]. No, I shouldn’t do that, that will be problematic. What a pain in the ass is to have this conversation, really. But I must do it before Monday, otherwise I’ll lose the chance. But there must be a way to avoid it! What if…”

The mind then circles around an idea—often in the name of avoiding pain—and enters a loop trying to find a solution, but the loop itself prevents it from getting to any conclusions.

Writing is an effective way to break the loop, and the mechanism is simple: since you “formally” went through the thoughts by writing them down, the mind can more easily continue towards the goal of figuring something out.

In many cases, the conclusion is that there’s no solution, that you have to simply bite the bullet and do whatever you have to do: have the damned conversation, accept that someone else wronged you, or even something positive, like accepting that you gained anything you could from an opportunity you took advantage of and that there’s no use in striving for more.

The magic is what happens when you go through the process: when the thoughts are written down, you finally get relief. The mental pressure lowers, and you are able to use your mind for something else.

Only temporarily, we must acknowledge right away. A single journaling session will not kill all of your recurrent thoughts just as one gym session will not keep you healthy forever. You must come back to it.

But it’s worth it. 10 minutes of writing the stuff that troubles your mind results in a hard-to-describe peace and satisfaction. A feeling that you can move on with your day effectively because you dealt with the mental pressure that was troubling you.

A few times a week or even a few times a month are already great. If you wish to give it a try and get a gentle challenge to your thoughts from Socrates and Machiavelli, feel free to journal this week on Detox Mental.