Journaling

What It Means

Journaling is writing down your thoughts and feelings so you can understand them more clearly. The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) lists managing anxiety, reducing stress and coping with depression among the ways it can help. It also helps you spot what's causing stress, which is the first step to making a plan about it.

How People Say It

• "I journal before bed to get it all out of my head."
• "Writing it down helped me see what was really bugging me."
• "My therapist suggested I keep a journal."

The Breakdown

Signs journaling might help

• The same worry keeps circling in your head.
• You feel stressed but can't say exactly why.
• You want to notice patterns in your mood or your days.

A short self-check. Read back a week of entries and ask: What keeps coming up? What was happening on the harder days? URMC says identifying your stressors is what lets you work on a plan to deal with them.

How to start

1. Pick a notebook or an app and keep it somewhere easy to reach.
2. Set aside a few minutes. URMC's encyclopedia page suggests writing every day.
3. Write whatever comes, without worrying about spelling or how it reads.
4. Once a week, look back for patterns.

URMC's Behavioral Health Partners team takes a looser view in a 2025 post: there are no rules, you don't have to commit to every day, entries don't need to be polished or tell a storyUser storyA short description of something a product should do, written from the point of view of the person who needs it, often in the form "As a, I want, so that." See more, and a journal doesn't even have to be words. Pick whichever approach you'll keep up.

Starting the conversation. A journal can make a doctor's visit easier: "I've been writing down how I feel each day, and the low days are getting more frequent."

Good to Know

URMC presents journaling as one way to help with stress, anxiety and depression. Talk to a doctor or a licensed mental health professional if low mood or anxiety lasts, or gets in the way of daily life. If you're thinking about suicide or are in crisis, call or text 988 (the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline). Call 911 in an emergency.

Related Terms and Categories

• Gratitude journal

  A notebook or app where you regularly write down specific things you're grateful for, often up to five at a time, once a week.

• Morning pages

  Julia Cameron's practice of writing three pages by hand first thing every morning, about whatever crosses your mind, for nobody's eyes but yours.

• Mood tracker

  A daily record of how your mood was, often a number or a color for each day, kept to spot patterns over weeks and months.

• Brain dump

  Writing down everything on your mind, tasks, worries and ideas, in one sitting so you can sort it afterward instead of holding it in your head.

• Bullet journal

  Ryder Carroll's notebook method for tracking tasks, events and notes with short entries and symbols, organized into an index and daily, monthly and future logs.

• Emotional check-in

  A short pause to notice and name how you feel right now, often as a word, a number on a scale or a point on a feelings chart.

Wellbeing and habits