How many times do you sit around completely bored?

How many times do you come home completed exhausted?

How often do you wake up stressed and rushed?

How frequently do you look back on the day, month, or year and wonder, what have I accomplished?

If you’re like most people, you can likely recall yourself doing these things on more than one occasion– and there’s a simple solution. Journalling is good for your spirit. Sitting down, putting pen to paper, and writing about anything is a fantastic way to relieve stress, reflect on an event, and work through a problem you’re facing. In fact, there is no shortage of good reasons to start journalling:

1. It relaxes and calms. You can probably look back and recall plenty of times when you were clenching your fists fuming over a problem. If you had a journal, you could have worked through it a lot quicker. In fact, you might have been able to avoid the upset altogether if you practiced journalling regularly. What’s stressing you out? What’s upsetting you? By writing about your day-to-day life, you can cover a lot of ground.

2. It soothes the mind. Laying awake in bed at night trying to quiet your tired yet restless mind can quickly become frustrating. If you pull out your journal and start writing out your thoughts– even the most random thing that pops into your head– you’ll find yourself nodding off in no time at all.

3. It opens you up. Journalling can make you feel silly at first as many of us have trouble facing up to our thoughts and feelings. But, journalling isn’t censored, and you’ll soon find yourself writing about things that might make you blush or smirk. Doing this really helps you get in touch with your emotions, and it’s worth working through the initial struggle you might face in writing about these thoughts and events.

4. It opens your mind up. You just had the worst day of your life and now you never want to see _____ again. You’re afraid to ever show your face at _______ and you’re freaking out over __________ … The solution: Write about it! Once you write it out, it’s off your chest. And, once you read it through, you’ll probably see it differently.

5. It’ll spark an idea. Journalling is unlimited. There are no rules or boundaries and you can literally sit down and write about anything you feel like. The random prompts you’ll follow are likely to spark some great ideas throughout your days of journalling, and that can help a lot.