Health and Wellness Review

Writing in a Diary Can Relieve Stress

I cannot remember a time when I did not have at least one journal that I was using. As a child, I preferred the tiny journals with pictures of flowers or my favorite cartoon character on it. These days, I love journals that feel good and open to lay flat so that the pen moves across them with ease. For years, I have found that using a daily journal is a wonderful way to create life balance.

A daily journal allows the implicit thoughts and feelings that you are having to become explicit. By chronicling where you have arrived to each day, you are immediately more in touch with the areas of your life may need attention. After journaling for a few months, you can go back over your entries and underline areas that you repeatedly mention as lacking energy or joy.

To start your regular journaling practice, it helps to set a time each day that you will set aside to write. Find yourself a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted and make yourself comfortable. Enjoy the moment. Set your clock for fifteen minutes and begin writing. Try not to edit when journaling; simply allow your thoughts to flow across the page without judging what comes out. What you write may surprise you. Let it out anyway. These are only thoughts; they appear and are changing all the time.

By giving yourself time to air out your thoughts, you also give yourself the freedom to feel all of your feelings. When you are finished writing, close your journal. Do not feel the need to re-read what you have written right away. Give yourself at least a week and then if you choose to, you can look back on what's been written.

Checking in with a friend who is also journaling can be helpful in assuring you continue this practice. Alternatively, by working with a life coach, you can use this practice as a way to create change. Reading books on writing can also be very helpful.

Most of all, enjoy your time writing. Your thoughts are a gift and your voice on the page is unique to you. Each sentence you write brings you closer to knowing yourself in this present moment, and as a result, closer to the life balance that you are looking for.

About the Author:

Christina Adler is a yoga and meditation teacher with her master's degree in psychology. She has lived in Sydney, Australia for the past thirteen years where she was the manager of a well-known yoga center. She has recently moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband where she enjoys her work as a life coach, writer and yoga teacher.

Learn more about life balance by visiting Christina's website at www.everydaybalance.net.

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