Domestic abuse worksheets
Journaling is a helpful strategy associated with improved mental health and well-being. This journaling worksheet provides mental health therapists with a brief overview of the benefits of journaling and examples of positive journaling prompts to suggest to clients.
You can download the free therapeutic journaling worksheet PDF and save it to your electronic health record (EHR) to share with clients.
What are the benefits of positive journaling?
Positive journals can be helpful ways to record thoughts, cope with difficult feelings, and get more clarity.
A positive journaling practice, or expressive writing, is an easily accessible coping strategy that anyone can try. It involves spending just a few minutes each day writing in a journal or electronic note.
Journaling has several benefits, including:
Improves emotional regulation and stress management
Positive journaling can help increase emotional awareness and regulation, distress tolerance, coping skills, and feelings of calm and relaxation.
Increases self-awareness
Journaling about past experiences helps with self-exploration to clarify values,boundaries, and goals, which helps clients make more informed and values-aligned decisions.
Strengthens coping strategies
Expressive writing is a coping strategy that can focus the mind and help to understand what’s at the core of stressful situations or conflicts.
Improves mood and reduces mental health symptoms
Research shows that writing about thoughts and feelings related to emotional events can lead to significant decreases in depressive symptoms and an increase in positive emotional dispositions.
Physical health benefits
Several studies show expressive writing has clinical benefits, including lowered blood pressure, improved autoimmune conditions, faster wound healing, better sleep, decreased morbidity, greater self-care behaviors, and increased relaxation.
Better relationships
Using a journaling worksheet can help to improve self-awareness, assisting clients in getting to the root of emotions, expressing their feelings more effectively, and handling conflicts constructively.
Improves ability to recognize triggers
Daily writing can help track symptoms and increase awareness of triggers when they arise.
Increases gratitude
Positive journaling can increase gratitude by helping to shift the mind to the positive aspects of life by developing an appreciation of what clients do have rather than what they don’t.
Strengthens reframing skills and perspective
Becoming more aware of thought processes and feelings, whether through a thought log or positive journal, can help to identify distorted thinking, which may negatively impact mental health and relationships.
Using a journaling worksheet can help to identify unhelpful thoughts and reframe them into more adaptive and beneficial thinking.
Tips for positive journaling
There are several ways to practice positive journaling. What’s essential is tailoring journaling to suit each client’s individual needs.
For instance, you might suggest the following tips to clients:
- Make time to write: Set aside a few minutes daily for journaling.
- Create a ritual: Find a comfortable place that is free of distractions, bring a cup of tea, light a candle, and use a specific notebook.
- Do what feels right: If words aren’t your thing, you can draw, paint, collage, or craft. The idea is that you have an outlet to express your feelings.
- You don’t have to follow a structure: If you write in a journal, it may be helpful to remember a few things: You don’t have to answer specific questions, and no one is grading your work. It’s just for you. So, it doesn’t need to be perfect.
Example positive journal prompts
If clients are looking for specific questions to guide their positive journaling practice, you may find the following prompts helpful:
- What did you accomplish today?
- Describe one step you took to support your health and wellness today.
- What is something that is causing you to feel anxious or stressed?
- What are some different ways to look at the situation?
- What are your next steps?
- Which coping strategies might you use to reduce your stress and anxiety?
- What three things are you grateful for today?
- How have you expressed your gratitude?
- What three things did you achieve?
- Who made a positive difference in your life today?
- What was the best part of your day?
- What brought you a sense of joy today?
- What inspired you today? In what ways?
- In what ways can you be more present in your daily life?
These prompts are also included in the therapy journal PDF that you can download for free from this article.
How to use the journal worksheet for adults
Therapists and clients can use the journaling worksheet in several ways.
You can use it to provide psychoeducation about the benefits of journaling. Therapists can also give clients the journaling worksheet as a handout to help them remember what you discussed in session.
Ask the client to use the positive journal prompts at home as an activity to boost self-esteem or coping strategy.
You could also use the journaling worksheet in the session to demonstrate how to start a journaling practice.
Sources
- Network of Care. (2024). Journaling improves health and self-esteem.
- Sohal, M., Singh, P., Dhillon, B. S., & Gill, H. S. (2022). Efficacy of journaling in the management of mental illness: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
- Smyth, J. M., Johnson, J. A., Auer, B. J., Lehman, E., Talamo, G., & Sciamanna, C. N. (2018). Online positive affect journaling in the improvement of mental distress and well-being in general medical patients with elevated anxiety symptoms: a preliminary randomized controlled trial.
- University of Rochester Medical Center. (n.d.). Journaling for Emotional Wellness.
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