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Taking pen in hand and writing down your personal thoughts, emotions and ideas is a form of journaling. Taking the day's events and jotting them between the pages of a notebook is much like therapy without making an appointment or the expense.

Journaling can not only be healing but it can be beneficial for the brain. Writing down the thoughts from your head can give insight and bring new ideas that might have never been realized until they are seen with the eyes and not just ideas roaming in the mind. By scribbling words on a blank piece of paper can open up your mind into a new way of thinking.

Keeping diaries can be dated back to 10th century Japan. Leaders, presidents, kings and queens have all been known to keep personal records of their daily lives. What these historic leaders may not have known are the health benefits associated with journaling our thoughts.

*Reduces stress
*Resolves personal struggles within ourself or others
*Can reveal patterns that can be altered
*Exercises the mind
*Provides insights
*Improves personal growth
*Provides an outlet with judgement

When writing in a journal, an individual is copying their thoughts in first-person. When reading those thoughts at a later time, it can be read in a third-person view which is an eye-opening experience. You can receive suggestions and clarity to how or why an event may have occurred in your life.

A journal is a passport to your personal happenings and history. Going back and reading previous years entries can be enlightening and encouraging. Remembering the past will allow a writer to track the progress that has been made during difficult times or to remember a few mishaps that serve as reminders to never make that mistake again.

Journaling can serve a much higher purpose and can include more than script about relationships and arguments with close friends. Taking time to write down the goals we would like to achieve can be gratifying especially if we can go back later, read them and see how far we have moved along in our lives. Whether we accomplish the goals we set for ourselves or not, it can be educational and sometimes humorous to know where are thoughts were focused at a particular time and place.

Creating a personal log of the daily ins and outs of your life creates personal growth and helps relieve tensions by giving you a place to sound off your frustrations to. When no one else is listening or seems to understand your emotions, a journal never beckons back at you with advice or with words like "I told you so".

So why would anyone want to keep a paper trail of their life that could possibly get into the hands of anyone? This was a question I asked myself when I came across my writings from when I was a teenager. To read the words of 16 year-old girl to what I've become now was highly educational especially now that I'm raising a teenage daughter myself.

As individuals are spending more time tapping at the keyboard, it may be easier to keep a journal saved on a personal computer rather than in a notebook kept at the bedside table. Many avid journal writers actually prefer the computer to notebooks as the paper journals tend not to hold up to the test of time. Whichever you choose, the benefits of journaling at any age can be a positive outpost to express your feelings and emotions.

Learn more about this author, Angela Pollock.
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