The transformative power of journaling

This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today. In February of 2021, I picked up a new copy of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a 12-week “spiritual path to higher creativity” first published in 1992. I’d long heard this book’s praises sung on the internet, especially one of its main tenets: morning pages, which are supposed to be three pages of spontaneous writing you complete upon waking about whatever comes to mind. I only finished nine weeks; a common joke around the book is that almost no one finishes it the first time they try. Three years later, morning pages remain one of my life’s most fulfilling habits. I’m just one of tens of thousands of people around the world who’ve picked up journaling as a mainstay of my mental health hygiene over the past few years (the search term “journaling” surged on Google Trends in April 2024). And although people have journaled about their lives for centuries, journaling is having a modern moment in the spotlight. The Artist’s Way holds a ubiquitous presence not only in writing-centric hubs like Substack (a quick scroll of my recent feed brings up dozens of mentions of the book) but also in plenty of celebrities’ social media feeds. Singer Olivia Rodrigo says the book helped her make her sophomore album in 2023; entrepreneur and investor Tim Ferriss says it’s “the most cost-effective therapy I’ve ever found”; and Adriene of Yoga With Adriene YouTube fame invited her followers to join her to write morning pages in September. Thirty-three years after its publication, it’s sold 5 million copies and been translated into 40 languages, and as of this writing it’s currently No. 2 on Amazon’s “creativity” bestseller list and No. 48 on Barnes & Noble’s self-help list. Then there’s The Shadow Work Journal, a wildly popular 2021 self-published book by author Keila Shaheen, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and marketing. She was only 24 when the book outsold Oprah’s latest book club release. The guide to confront the “shadow,” or unconscious, parts of yourself, based on concepts by psychiatrist Carl Jung, blew up on TikTok, where more than 29,000 videos can be found under the hashtag #shadowworkjournal. While Shaheen isn’t a therapist or trauma expert, many sing the praises of the journal’s tools such as “wound mapping,” an exercise in which you self-identify core wounds under categories like trust, neglect, and guilt. Shaheen’s second book, The Book of Shadow Work, comes out January 14, through a Simon & Schuster imprint as part of a multi-book deal. Shaheen — a lifelong journaler who keeps different notebooks for topics like productivity, focus, and dreaming and envisioning — was going through a “profound crisis” when her diaries led her to self-help and spirituality, and exploring shadow work. “Diving back into those diary pages and transforming the questions I would ask myself and exercises I would do into a guided journal made so much sense for me, so it was almost a way of alchemizing my own pain and process into a resource for other people to experience,” Shaheen says. Guided journals can be useful to kick off your writing habit, but you don’t need anything specific to get started other than a pen and a notebook. Everyone from George Washington to Maya Angelou has done it. If you’d prefer to use tech like your laptop or tablet, you can use a word processor like Google Docs. But aside from record-keeping for your own life, journaling can offer many genuine health benefits for little effort and zero dollars. The proven benefits of journaling In addition to the many people who can attest to the transformative power of journaling, there’s also solid scientific proof that the simple act of writing about our feelings is good for our brains. Author and psychotherapist Kathleen Adams opened the Center for Journal Therapy in 1988 and has dedicated her career to “the intersection of writing and healing in a mental health setting.” “When I first started doing this work, there were six books published on journal writing,” Adams says, “and now there’s, like, 25,000.” The first scientific study that helped popularize journaling as a mainstream form of mental health care was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999, Adams says. Two groups of rheumatoid arthritis and asthma patients were asked to do the Pennebaker method, a writing exercise in which they would write down their thoughts and feelings daily for three days. The control group wrote about neutral topics, while the other group wrote about their most stressful life events. “In 47 percent of the cases, the doctors reported that symptoms [in the patients writing about their stress] had decreased dramatically,” Adams says. Earlier in her career, Adams also worked with patients dealing with mental health issues, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and other issues in a psychiatric hospital when “journaling wasn’t a thing yet.” “What I found there was that even though journal writing was pretty new to most of them, when they wrote for even a few minutes at a time, they felt better,” she says. “They learned some coping strategies that stayed with them after they were discharged. And it was very much a revelation to me.” However, when Adams went on to work with patients with severe trauma, she discovered that unstructured journaling could “cause patients to write themselves into traumatization.” “They used their journals as a friend, as a companion, as confessional, as an attempt to work through the traumatic memories that they had,” Adams says. “But they reported to me in our intake interviews that they would fall off the cliff or have some sort of a deep dive into a dark space in the context of writing about their trauma. Sometimes that could be about the lack of structure, pacing, and containment.” Adams created the Journal Ladder, a structure for therapeutic writing programs, to counteract the possible negative effects of journaling. The lowest, or beginning, rung is the most structured, giving the patient specific prompts to write on for only a few minutes at a time. As you get more comfortable with journaling, you can work your way to the top rung, which is free, unstructured writing. Over the years, numerous other studies have affirmed the benefits of journaling. A 2006 paper found that journaling reduced depressive symptoms in young adults struggling with their mental health, while a 2018 study concluded that journaling about a traumatic experience for just 15 minutes for three days per week over the course of a month was associated with reduced mental distress and improved overall well-being among patients with medical conditions. Journaling can create an almost magical alchemy for some diarists that keeps them grounded. In 2023, 37-year-old writer and performer Hunter Gardner was laid off from his tech job in New York City and unemployed for almost a year, an experience that had him feeling emotionally low. That summer, a friend invited him to join a group of comedians like himself to work through The Artist’s Way together. “I was really surprised about how if you just sit down first thing in the morning with a blank page and a pen and just let whatever’s on your mind spill out, how comforting that can be,” Gardner says. “It really taught me a lot about how to check in with myself and some of my negative self-thinking. … It taught me how to spend time with myself.” As part of the book’s exercises, Gardner wrote personal affirmations that included “I’m allowed to be happy as an artist” and “I know what is best for myself and my happiness.” Soon, Gardner found himself being creative in new ways and more willing to experiment. “Even now when I journal,” he says, “and this started when I was doing The Artist’s Way, I sign every entry with, ‘I love you, Hunter.’” How to get started journaling — and how to keep at it As we head further into the new year, there are simple, stress-free ways you can kick-start a journaling habit. My personal tips include selecting a notebook that holds a spark for you; choose a design or color that you’re attracted to — my current journal has purple flowers with gold embossing on the cover, and I keep it on my desk at all times. Try journaling at the same time each day (or week, whatever feels attainable for you) so it becomes a habit. If free journaling feels intimidating, look up simple prompts online, buy something like the Five Minute Journal that already has prompts inside, or simply write about what you’re grateful for. Here are some of Adams’s best journaling tips: - There are no “rules.” You can change up your journaling routine at any time: When you write, how often, for how long is up to you and dependent on what’s working for you. The only “rule” to really pay attention to is whether “you’re getting outcomes that you value,” Adams says. - There’s no significant difference in writing by hand or on a device. Whether you’re tapping away on your Notes app or writing by hand, both digital and analog journaling can help you reap the benefits. If you prefer digital journaling, you can use a stylus, a journaling app, or dictate into a transcription app. - Incorporate relaxing or satisfying rituals. Pair your writing with something you find relaxing, like a cup of coffee or tea, or meditation. “Small pleasures applied consistently help deepen and extend your writes,” Adams says. - Set some goals and use your journal to track progress. Once a month, you can use a journal to check in with your goals. You can see the progress you’ve already made, if and how you’ve stalled, and reflect on how you’re feeling. At the same time, you can make a plan for advancing your goals in the next month. Adams herself met Julia Cameron back when The Artist’s Way first came out, and she once wrote morning pages for 17 months straight. “It doesn’t seem like there’s anything particularly complex about any of this,” Adams says, “other than the recognition that a little bit of writing done consistently can have a big impact. … The journal is so clearly the self, so the capacity for a healthy relationship with the journal is predictive of the capacity for a healthier relationship with the self.”

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The transformative power of journaling