Keeping A Journal Can Reduce Stress And Alleviate Anxiety

With science-backed benefits ranging from reduced stress to better immunity and emotional well-being, journaling just might improve your Pilates practice, too.

- Amanda Altman

I’ll never forget my first diary. It was pocket-sized and ’80s-pink with flowers and a gold lock that could only be opened with a matching key. Maybe it’s because writing has been something I’ve always enjoyed, but my “Dear Diary” phase lasted for years, chronicling my tween crushes (mostly of the Mark-Paul Gosselaar variety), frenemies I couldn’t shake and the colossally important happenings at the school cafeteria. I filled up the lined pages of that entire diary, and then another and another.

But my writing came to a halt around the time middle school started. Diaries weren’t something you hid under your pillow—or in my case, the back of my desk drawer, since my diary was protected by that aforementioned lock-and-key system. They were something you hid from altogether. Sadly, with the end of my Saved By the Bell days went the cool factor of the diary.

Thankfully times have changed (though MarkPaul is having a bit of a moment) and while the term “diary” has now morphed into “ journal,” keeping a written record of our lives is back in—and for good reason. Experts believe expressive writing can lead to a host of benefits, from reducing stress and boosting immunity to making you smarter, more mindful and even happier. It’s not a coincidence that some of the world’s biggest thinkers and innovators, from Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln to Anne Frank and Maya Angelou, put pen to paper on the regular.

“Journaling, compared to therapy, is a cheap way to process our emotions,” jokes Jennifer Longmore, BASW, MEd, the CEO of Soul Journeys, an international coaching company. “It helps us create emotional maturity, so we then tend to get promoted more often in our jobs, have larger social circles, feel better in our bodies and so on.”