JOURNALLING CAN HELP REDUCE YOUR STRESS

With life changing daily, our thoughts and feelings can run free, at times positive, other times overwhelming. There’s something we can do — that’s totally free and takes very little time — to help centre ourselves. It’s what many great world leaders, inventors, and artists have done for centuries: keep a journal.

Journalling is recording your thoughts, feelings and ideas. This act of free reflection allows you to put your thoughts on paper, allowing you to see patterns, where to make changes, and ideas to act on.

Writing and rambling to yourself is the best way to come up with ideas. (Journalling is how I got the idea for my first book, At

Home Anywhere, and how I realised my husband was the man I was meant to marry!) There are two ways you can journal:

- Free-writing: Start by writing any thoughts that come to mind on paper, in no particular order. Go for as long as you want, or at least a couple of pages.

- Prompt-Based: Don’t know where to start? Ask yourself a question and then answer it. After a few sentences, the answer will trail off into it’s own ideas. You can use prompts like: Today I’m grateful for…; the things most on my mind…; I’m afraid of… etc.

Other Tips

Be consistent: Give yourself five minutes daily to write something. You will start to look forward to this ‘you’ time.

Don’t edit: Spelling and sentence structure don’t matter. Avoid trying to be perfect. Let the words flow.

Be honest: We can change our feelings and beliefs when we know what they are. Don’t hide what you think from the paper.

Journalling is a time-tested method of coping and creating. Try it. You never know what you’ll discover about yourself!