While keeping a journal may be a pleasant pastime in and of itself, it is also a powerful tool that has assisted many of history's most accomplished thinkers and leaders in their pursuit of excellence.

Famous people who have died include Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, W.H. Auden, Queen Victoria, John Quincy Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, John Steinbeck, Sylvia Plath, Shawn Green, Mary Chestnut, Brian Koppelman, Anas Nin, Franz Kafka, Martina Navratilova, and Benjamin Franklin. In particular, all those who keep diaries. For them and many others, it was indeed a "weapon for spiritual battle," as Foucault put it. Something that allows them to put their beliefs into action while also allowing them to unleash their imagination and relieve stress. It was intrinsic to their identity. That experience shaped their identities. Even better, it can improve you. This comprehensive book will provide you with all the information you need to make journaling one of the finest things you do in 2020 and beyond, regardless of whether you are completely new to the idea of writing or have journaled in the past but have fallen out of habit. In this course, you'll not only discover the finest notebooks to utilize, but also the advantages of journaling, the most renowned diaries during the previous two thousand years, and more. You may use the links below to go to a certain part of the page, or you can just keep scrolling to read everything.

What does journaling do to the brain?

The Positive Effects of Keeping a Journal

Science backs up journaling's positive effects on your mental health and well-being.
Journaling has strong scientific backing, as several studies show:

"Harvard Business School found that compared to a control group that didn't keep a diary, those who did so at the end of the day were 25% more productive. We do not learn from experience...we learn through reflecting on experience," the authors write as a conclusion, "our findings demonstrate reflection to be a significant factor driving learning."

[*] Journaling has been shown to boost mental health after traumatic or stressful situations, according to research from Cambridge University. The physical and mental well-being of participants improved after being asked to write for 15 to 20 minutes about such situations.

The ability to write well and talk confidently is essential, according to research conducted at Stanford University. Communication and clear thought go hand in hand, and writing reflects this.

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships research indicated that "writing focusing on good outcomes in unfavorable circumstances" reduces emotional suffering.

The Diary of Experimental Psychology discovered that writing in a journal before bedtime reduced cognitive stimulation, ruminating, and worrying, all of which contributed to a more restful night's sleep.

Improvements in Working Memory and Reducing Intrusive Thoughts About Negative Events Reflective writing has been shown in studies published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology to have these effects on cognition. Because of these enhancements, we are able to devote more brainpower to other tasks, so improving our overall mental health and our capacity to handle stressful situations.

Just write down your worries in your journal.

I believe you'll be a tremendous source of comfort and support," Anne Frank wrote in her diary for the first time on June 12, 1942. On the twenty-fourth day following her first diary entry, Anne and her Jewish family were forced to go into hiding. They spent the next two years in a small annex above her father's business in Amsterdam. They planned to live there for a whole two years. Anne Frank's father, Otto, claims his daughter didn't consistently record her thoughts in her diary. Writing helped her process her emotions and find solutions to her problems. When she felt perplexed, she turned to writing. She used journaling as a method of self-care, venting her frustrations there instead of on the loved ones and friends who shared her plight. She must have had a particularly trying day when she said one of her most brilliant and perceptive statements. They have less patience than paper, she added.

Journaling has been shown to enhance mental health after traumatic or stressful situations, as discussed in the Research section. Similarly, a research conducted by the University of Arizona found that participants who kept a diary about their divorce were more likely to heal from the trauma and go on with their lives. Psychologists often suggest keeping a diary as a way for patients to cope with the emotional, external, and mental overload that might result from their condition. To provide just one example, Shia LaBeouf's Honey Boy script was adapted from his court-ordered diary entries on his traumatic upbringing. Journaling served as LaBeouf's therapy because "it was part of sussing out my history, going to your soul, trying to get to know myself, like a shedding of skin in a manner," he said. In a time when "I was in a position where I would have done anything to feel better," Hayley Phelan of the New York Times began journaling as "one of the most effective acts of self-care is also, luckily, one of the cheapest."

To keep a diary is not to put on a show for posterity.

It's your own introspection. This is you confronting your issues head-on. This is you working things out and getting some perspective. Describe the folks that drove you absolutely crazy today. This is the remark, tweet, or news item that has been driving you crazy. Describe the scars you still have from your formative years. Your wrongdoer or the person who wronged you. The harrowing ordeal. The parent who was either too preoccupied, too critical, or too preoccupied with their own problems to be the kind of person we needed. Take your problems to your notebook, whether they are the causes of anxiety or concern, recurring sources of dissatisfaction, or barriers to maintaining relationships. You won't believe how amazing you feel afterward.

Write Down Your Negative Ideas Instead of Thinking Them

Artist Eugène Delacroix, who found solace in Stoicism, said, "My mind is always busy with meaningless plotting...

They destroy my psyche and set me ablaze. The intruders have already entered my territory. After a lengthy hiatus, he finally picks up his journal and writes, "I am starting it up again." I've been fretting about this anxious excitement for a while, and this may be the solution. When asked about his daily journaling routine, Tim Ferriss has replied, "I don't journal to 'be productive.' My goal is not to generate novel concepts or write publishable material. This journal is for my eyes alone... Just writing this down will help me get my crazy thoughts out of my head and on with my day.

Yes! This is the whole point of keeping a diary. Now that it's on paper, we don't have to keep it in our thoughts or hearts. It's like "spiritual windshield wipers," as author Julia Cameron described it. Journaling about an issue while I was feeling very irritated prevented me from acting in a way I would later come to regret. Lincoln's friends and family termed these letters he wrote when he was feeling very angry about something or someone "hot letters," and he would write them anytime he felt the need to vent his frustration. Following that, he'd jot down, "Never sent. Avoided signing"

Constantly descending list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most hated, the most whatever," wrote Marcus Aurelius. Now, you may be wondering: "Where is it all?" Smoke and mirrors, urban myth or non-myth at all? Negative thoughts are something that everyone experiences. regarding the errors that were made. Our attackers. The blunders we're too ashamed to admit to. All the pledges we made and then betrayed, or all the pledges others made to us and then broke. Totally disinterested love interest. That shady business associate who ripped us off. It all adds up. It builds and builds, burning us up inside. Don’t turn into smoke, dust, or legend, like so many people in history. Burn it out of yourself and onto the pages of journal.

Keep A Journal For Your Grandchildren

In Walter Isaacson’s wonderful biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, he spends a lot of time dissecting and exploring the ideas in Da Vinci’s notebooks. As Isaacson observed of Da Vinci’s lifelong habit of journaling: “Five hundred years later, Leonardo’s notebooks are around to astonish and inspire us. Fifty years from now, our own notebooks, if we work up the initiative to start them, will be around to astonish and inspire our grandchildren, unlike our tweets and Facebook posts.” Paper, Isaacson has said, is the best technology ever invented. Marcus Aurelius is example of this.

The American philosopher Brand Blanshard was as enthralled with Marcus’s writing as Isaacson was with Da Vinci. As he said:

“Few care now about the marches and countermarches of the Roman commanders. What the centuries have clung to is a notebook of thoughts by a man whose real life was largely unknown who put down in the midnight dimness not the events of the day or the plans of the morrow, but something of far more permanent interest, the ideals and aspirations that a rare spirit lived by.”

Stop wasting your time tweeting and chattering and texting and snapchatting. Or at least steal some of that time to start producing your own notebooks. Create something that, if the centuries don’t cling to, at least your family can. Issacson again: “They’ll be around 50 years for…your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. They’ll be around maybe 500 years.”

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