3 Benefits Of Having a Gratitude Journal
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Do you keep a daily journal? I’m not talking like the ones we kept as teenagers. Oh man, I cringe at just the thought of what I kept in mine. There are actually benefits to keeping a gratitude journal.
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What is a gratitude journal?
A gratitude journal is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a way to keep track of the good positive things in our lives. It’s so easy to get caught up in the stress of life. Having a gratitude journal helps us to see the positives of life as well. Even on our worse days, we can find at least one good thing about our day.
3 Benefits to a gratitude journal
- Release emotions
Any type of journal is a great way to release your emotions. While it is important to have someone you can count on and confide in, sometimes you just need to be alone with your thoughts and emotions. This is a great time to really think back over your day and find the hidden good parts of it on a bad day. If you had a great day, writing it down can remind you of that day when you have a bad one.
- Good for your mental health
It’s very easy to get caught up in the negative. If you suffer from mental illness this is especially true. It’s a great benefit to your life to write out good and bad parts to your day so you can release them from your mind and continue on with your day and life. One very important reminder is, if you have a bad day, it does NOT mean you are a failure. There are times we have a bad day due to no fault of our own. We all have bad days or longer. It’s how you deal with them that matter.
- Help with sleep
A great benefit to journaling is that it helps you to sleep better at night. You are probably wondering how in the heck that works. When you decompress and get out your feelings in a journal at the end of the day when you are starting to unwind, it helps your brain. Your brain doesn’t keep going over and over the day thus letting your body relax for better sleep.
Different types of journals
There is no right or wrong way to keep your gratitude journal. You can do it all by hand in a notebook or you can purchase a fancy one like this The-One-Minute Gratitude Journal. It literally makes it easy to only take 1 minute to fill out this journal.
Each page has spots for “Today I am grateful for”. They vary from 2 to 3 spots. At the bottom of the page is a spot that asks you a question. It’s not always the same question. One of the examples is “Things I did for myself that made me happy”. I love that question because we all know how important self-care is.
The pages are not dated. So you can journal when you want to. If you need to you can also journal more than 2-3 things you are grateful for. There is no right or wrong way to write in your gratitude journal.
