Journaling in the time of Covid: Health benefits and self-care

(Representational image) Unsure of what to write or where to begin journaling? Guided journals with writing prompts, like the one on the Pandemic Project website, could help. (Image: Priscilla du Preez via Unsplash)

Journaling and I have an on-off relationship. More off than on. Though I have never kept a journal, I have wondered what’s all the hoopla about journaling, which is now associated with self-care and healing.

“It depends on what you wish to achieve with journaling,” said Rachit Saxena, a Delhi-based hypnotherapist who has been developing a journal for self-care with guided prompts. “Are you looking at it as a practice or as self- expression?”

According to Saxena, the primary reason for journaling is the emotional release that comes from writing down one’s thoughts and anxieties.

Also read: Diary of an Omicron patient

Journaling in pandemic times

Psychologists say that reflective journaling is an outpouring of emotional energy, and therefore it can be an inexpensive yet effective way to do self-care.

Over the past few decades, hundreds of studies on journaling have uncovered health benefits like better sleep, more self-confidence and a stronger immune system. With some even calling it the ‘CPR of soul’.

But one old study (Disclosure of trauma and immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program, 1995) showed that the hepatitis B vaccine was more effective in participants who wrote about their personal traumatic events for four consecutive days before their first shot: those who journaled, compared with the control group, had significantly higher antibody levels against Hepatitis B.

That’s something to keep in mind when we talk of the pandemic and the stress people are experiencing now.

Has journaling increased during this period? Thousands of journal entries on the Pandemic Project, a website set up by psychology researchers, seem to suggest so.

On the Pandemic Project website, there are guided writing prompts to help people explore their experiences and emotions around Covid-19, and the basic instructions for the visitors are to write their deepest thoughts and feelings without worrying about the sentence structure or grammar. The visitors have to fill out a brief survey and a computer will analyze what they have written and feedback is sent to them. One of the participants, Ashley Neil, said, “It is something I started at the start of the pandemic when I wasn’t able to travel back home in India and to my surprise, I started feeling better and less negative after journaling.”

Getting started

How does one get started? Saxena first clarifies the differences between diary writing and journal writing. “I can only speak for myself when I say diary entries are about day-to-day tasks and journal writing is about exploring ideas, thoughts and emotions of the past, present and the future. Unlike diary entries, journaling is not specific to the day.”

There is also expressive writing, a technique where you write about an upsetting experience for 15-20 minutes a day for 3-4 days. The authors of the book Opening Up by Writing it Down, Professor Joshua Smyth, professor of biobehavioral health, and James W Pennebaker, social psychologist, have noted in the preface that ‘expressive writing has been found to improve people’s mental and physical health for weeks, months, even years when compared to people who write about emotionally neutral topics (or other comparison groups).’

Urmila Biswas, founder of Lateral Thinkers, a PR firm in Bengaluru, journals to create a daily log of her day, writing down her thoughts, feelings and activities. “When I’m feeling stressed, confused or unhappy, journaling helps me make sense of my feelings,” she said in an interview. “As the words flow out on paper, it feels therapeutic and I’m often able to see things from a different perspective when they are written down in front of me.”

This is true for another ardent journal writer. “My head is a whirling with my thoughts and emotions,” she said. “Writing them down helps me to give a structure to it and helps me release those emotions.”

Apart from the release of emotional energy, affirmations are also used to reinforce emotions. “I write down 3 things that make me happy each day,” Biswas said. “Through this exercise, over the course of time, I have identified little, everyday things that bring me the most joy.”

When and how to journal

On different levels, the time you journal your thoughts have different goals. Saxena explained, “Morning time journaling could be used as goal setting while the end-of-the-day journaling could be about releasing built up emotions. But journaling, on a broader level, is all about writing rather than timing.”

When I started journaling, it was always on scraps of paper. Today, there are tools that have enabled better self-expressions. Saxena’s self-love journal is a lot like therapy with guided writing prompts to help the person to start the work of self-care before even actually getting therapy. “Writing prompts give a structured writing approach to let go of one’s grievances.”

Some psychologists believe that through writing, our pain gets translated into words outside of ourselves. Journaling transforms our emotions - including some muddled and bottled up emotions - into thoughts. That done, what next?

When he started journaling on the Pandemic Project, Neil felt that his experiences were organized into a sequence. Processing his anxiety and trauma through writing gave him a semblance of control. He chooses not to read his past journal entries.

On the other hand, Biswas calls her journey in journaling as interesting and stuff to reminisce. “When I go over the pages at the end of a year, I get to remember nostalgically, have a good laugh or shed tears.”

Should one read past journals? Saxena said, “Only parts which involve goals and ideas could be read over. However, ideally, past events and venting entries shouldn’t be read.”

To be sure, even journaling can have its perils if it is done wrong. And it is definitely not a substitute for help from a mental health professional.

If putting your thoughts on paper still seems like an appealing idea, consider this: We experience a medley of emotions every day. Journaling can help to process these emotions without the kind of filter we may apply while confiding in someone else - not matter how close.