✍️ 3 Benefits of Journaling for Success & Happiness

The easiest, cheapest, simplest practice to reach your goals and be healthy

Welcome back to The Microdose Diet a newsletter about personal and professional development using alternative medicines, such as microdosing psychedelics. 🍄

I hope you have been enjoying the summer and have been taking a lot of time off to recharge, rejuvenate and reset. I certainly have been and it has been fabulous!

Would you like to emulate some of the best creative minds that have walked the Earth, such as Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, and Leonardo da Vinci? This is easier than you think! These bright minds all have in common the habit of journaling to record their lives and associated thoughts, feelings and emotions. Journaling is one of the greatest, easiest and definitely cheapest tools out there to promote an healthy state of mind. Read on to learn more about some of the surprising and outsized benefits of keeping a journal.

🎯 Achieve Your Goals

You have likely read about the research showing that people who write down their goals are 42 percent more likely to achieve them than those who don't. The clarity and accountability of writing down goals have traditionally been the reasons given to justify this number.

There is more than meets the eye though when it comes to the benefits of writing. Journaling, specifically by hand, brings its own slew of advantages in the successful pursuit of your goals.

First, journaling gives you a very tangible way to assess your progress. You can always go back to your journal when feeling the need for encouragement and additional motivation. The process of writing also makes the improvement even more real and permanent.

Second, by giving a target to your brain it also helps direct your attention towards your intermediary successes and ultimately your goals. Now your subconscious and conscious minds can work in concert to make them a reality.

Third, handwriting increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain, similar to meditation. The mere action of writing by hand unleashes creativity not easily accessed in any other way. Thus stimulating ideas on ways to achieve your goals.

Fourth, handwriting sharpens the brain and helps learn. Sequential hand movements activate large regions of the brain responsible for thinking, language, healing and working memory.

Fifth, handwriting improves critical thinking by allowing the writer to think more thoroughly about the information recorded.

In addition, Baikie & Wilhelm have shown in 2005 that expressive writing supports a wide range of physical, cognitive, and emotional benefits such as; higher student grade averages, less time out of work following job loss and less work absenteeism.

Who would have thought that journaling for a few minutes a day could be a game changer when it comes to achieving your dreams?!

🧠 Improve Your Health, Mental and Physical

The positive impacts of journaling on your health, both mental and physical, are simply mind-blowing.

The same Baikie & Wilhelm demonstrated that journaling; 1) lowers blood pressure; 2) improves lung and liver function; 3) decreases the time spent in hospital; 4) boosts moods; 5) improves psychological wellbeing; 6) lessens depressive and avoidance symptoms; and 7) reduces stress-related visits to the doctor.

In fact, studies show that time spent journaling about our deepest thoughts and feelings can even reduce the number of sick days we take off work (Sohal, Singh, Dhillon & Gill, 2022).

Journaling can help us accept rather than judge our mental experiences, resulting in fewer negative emotions in response to stressors. If you feel easily triggered by anything and anyone, journaling will be a great tool for you. It will be a better avenue than trying to control your environment which will just add to your daily stress and anxiety.

Journaling is particularly helpful in supporting mental health with demonstrated reduction in anxiety, and obsessive thinking.

When I am upset about a particular situation, I write down my thoughts, feelings and emotions, rip up the paper and I feel immediately lighter! This technique has provided me with a wonderful relief from my old patterns of obsessive thinking and ruminating.

Journaling also improves the perception of events (thank you increased critical thinking!), regulates emotions, and encourages awareness.

No doctor’s appointment needed!

↪️ Shift Your Perspective

I have never been a great fan of keeping a gratitude journal, it has always felt very gimmicky to me. However, I started writing a few lines several times a week about the positive things that have unfolded during the day and, as importantly, positive thoughts about myself.

That, my friend, has been a total game changer for me. Instead of focusing my mind on what has not worked, or even just overlooking the great things that have happened to me, I have now given a new target to my little grey cells and they have over-delivered. From the free croissant I received at the bakery, the compliment someone gave me on the street, the fun time with my friends, to the progress I made on some of my projects or the small improvements I made in my diet, I am now able to notice what is working well in my life and this has been making me feel good about myself and my life.

It has also given me a lot of perspective on my past. I had a tendency to focus my attention on the challenges, the lack of support, or the unkind words I had experienced over time. Never was I remembering the loving moments, the support, the fun times I had enjoyed. Now my well-trained mind is also looking for these bright times in my past.

This positive journaling has helped me feel way more positive in my day to day life, but also way more hopeful and secure in my life (less paranoia is always welcome 😀). It has been another tool in my toolkit that has made a great change in my life while requiring very limited resources. In summary, a fabulous ROI!

Research from Frederickson in 2010 supports my own personal finding; “Study participants who regularly drew their attention to aspects of their lives that made them feel blessed increased their positivity”.

I hope you feel encouraged to try journaling for yourself and to share the love with your family and friends. This is a very easy, cheap and simple way, accessible to most, that has proven positive impacts on all aspects of our lives.

Enjoy the summer! 🌞

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About The Microdose Diet

The Microdose Diet by Peggy Van de Plassche focuses on personal and professional development using alternative medicines, such as microdosing psilocybin, tapping meditation, journaling, guided meditation and visualization ✨

I am Peggy Van de Plassche, a former banker and VC who spent 20 years in the financial services and technology industries. I now speak and write about the benefits of alternative medicines, such as microdosing psilocybin, for professional and personal growth. I created The Microdose Diet - the 90 Day Plan for Success and Happiness🍾 My book will be published in 2024.

Thanks for reading, listening, and watching 🙏

Peggy

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This newsletter is designed to entertain and inform, not provide medical advice. You should always consult your doctor when it comes to your personal health or before you start any treatment 🩺