For something so simple, there are an amazing number of benefits linked to journaling. These benefits are both subjective (personally felt) and objective (scientifically proven).

Here’s are some of the many benefits:

• Strengthens your immune system and leads to better physical health
• Improves emotional intelligence (the ability to perceive and understand emotions)
• Soothes anxiety and increases feelings of calmness
• Promotes individuation (the maturing of the self/identity)
• Enhances mental health 
• Helps you to deal better with depression 
• Encourages spiritual growth and integration
• Reduces symptoms related to panic, PTSD, and addiction
• Increased self-awareness, self-understanding, and self-compassion
• Improves your ability to communicate with others 
• Increases happiness 
• Promotes mental clarity and problem-solving skills
• Helps you to deal with stress and intrusive thoughts more effectively 
• Increases creativity
• Improves your work efficiency
• Can help to improve your IQ 
• Speeds up emotional recovery after romantic breakups 
• Promotes emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual healing

Even just spending a few minutes a day recording how you feel is hugely beneficial, this is because journaling helps you to read your own mind and make sense of all the mental clutter and emotional turbulence you feel inside.

As a self-awareness and self-discovery tool, journaling is a fantastic resource. When we explore our thoughts, we’re not living second-hand knowledge or seeing ourselves through the eyes of some “professional” – instead, we are actively seeking to understand, through direct experience, who we are and what we value the most at a core level.