We live in a time and day where we are always surrounded by responsibilities, difficulties and pressure. Mental health issues have started appearing more and more in people’s lives and thankfully, more and more people start feeling comfortable about expressing their struggles with mental health issues out loud.
Writing as a form of self-expression can be a very creative and relaxing way for you to take some things off your mind and better put them into words. Here are just some reasons why writing can help you feel better mentally and just how you can achieve that.
- It can help you understand your emotions better
Writing about how you feel doesn’t have to be something that should take a lot of energy from your side. It is supposed to help you find a way to talk about how you feel and come to terms with your emotions.
If you’re struggling with a mental health issue, you will probably find it very hard to open up and to understand how you feel and why you feel that certain way. While many times you might feel moody, or tired or upset, you might not always have the answer for it.
This is a great opportunity for you to open your journal and start writing how you feel. In order to start understanding why you feel a certain way, you will have to look deeper into how you feel at a certain time. For example, you can talk about how you had a rough day because you missed the bus and then got your shoes wet during your lunch break.
While these small things are not the reason why a mental health issue happens, they can intensify your bad thoughts or emotions. By analyzing the situation you were in when you started feeling a certain way, you will be able to get a better understanding of your emotions.
- It allows you to express yourself without feeling vulnerable
Talking to other people about your issues can be scary and difficult. If you’re struggling with a mental health issue and you don’t feel like you are ready to open up to a friend or a therapist just yet, you can always use writing as a way to get more comfortable with the process of expressing yourself.
You certainly don’t have to push yourself to start writing about everything that you feel. Just keeping a simple journal can help you eliminate feelings of stress which would come from talking to someone about the way that you feel.
This can help you prepare for and start feeling more ready in order to take the big step and start working with a professional therapist who will be able to also offer you good and viable advice in order to help you overcome your problem.
The good thing about writing down your feelings is that you don’t have to be a professional. If you feel the need to start putting your feelings into words, all you will need is a piece of paper or a good notepad app. Studicus, an online platform for writers recommends Evernote to first time writers, as it is an app that you can use on any mobile device and in a multitude of ways in order to transfer your thoughts and emotions on “paper”.
- It can help you identify your triggers
Writing down your everyday encounters and situations which were stressful or unpleasant to you can help you understand which situations can trigger certain actions or emotions from your side. This can be anything from someone raising their voice, to you being scared of something to anything else you might have subconsciously associated with a bad situation.
By writing down each occasion when your mental health wasn’t the greatest, you might be able to start understanding exactly what it is that causes your mental health to decline. Your triggers could be the best way for you to better understand your condition as well as certain elements of your upbringing which could play a role in the way you react to things in your current life situation.
- It gives you an opportunity to say something positive
One of the things that many people who struggle with a mental health issue forget is to say something good about themselves, especially during days when their mental state isn’t the most stable. If you decide to keep a journal and write on a daily basis, you should set a few rules which will make your experience with writing a little more pleasant.
First of all, you should always make yourself find time to write, even if that’s just a few words. On top of that, you should make a deal with yourself to always try and say something positive about yourself. Even if you’re going through a bad day and you can’t find anything positive, you can always say that you liked how you woke up easily that morning or how you wore that bright colored shirt you like.
Even the smallest bit of positivity in your everyday life can help you see things from a different perspective and make you feel a little better. Try to incorporate some good words into your everyday life and even if you don’t mean them in the beginning, you will get used to accepting a compliment from yourself and later on from others.
- It can help you ease stress and accept certain situations
If you’re gone through a traumatic experience as a child or at any point in your life, you might have a hard time dealing with certain situations as they can cause you a lot of stress and discomfort. Writing about them in your journal or even through the form of poems or a short story can help you make them easier to handle.
While this might not work for every single person suffering from trauma or stress, is it possible that by writing about certain traumatic events that took place in your life you are making them more tangible and easier for your head to process. The more you try and distance yourself from a situation, the more difficult it will be for you to face it when you have to.
Author’s BIO:
topics starting from education and ending at modern art. That`s why the idea of her blog cannot be narrowed to one topic as well. Linda also has vast experience in editing texts and knows all the angles of academic and professional writing thanks to her productive cooperation with the educational website for students. Linda is a passionate traveler and she is eager to learn new things and meet new people.
