5 reasons to keep a journal
A journal’s purpose isn’t just to log your day-to-day. It’s a really useful tool that can become something more than that, to help you self-actualise, aka reach your full potential.

Journaling has helped me maintain my calm through stressful points in life, such as GCSE season.

FYI: this article has been written by Arpan, a member of our teen committee.

Here are 5 reasons why you should start journaling too:

1. Goal keeping: whether it is restoring your skin or even improving your grades. Keeping a journal is a great way to hold yourself accountable and to feel a sense of accomplishment after achieving your milestones. When in the process of accomplishing your goals, there can be many obstacles. Keeping a journal can be a reminder of why you wanted to reach a particular goal to begin with.

2. Self-care ritual: writing a few pages a week about your worries could allow you to relieve pent-up emotions and could also become more self-aware of your thought patterns or trigger points.

3. Dealing with real-life situations: Sometimes writing about a situation could help you see the problem from a different perspective and help you organise your own thoughts and feelings, leading you to deal with the situation effectively.

4. Productivity increase: using different tools, such as habit trackers or simple to-do lists, can make a real difference in how productive you are in a day.

5. Memories: journals are tangible keepsakes of your youth. A simple paragraph on your day helps you fall in love with or appreciate the mundane. Daily events or actions from your loved ones that would usually go unnoticed can be brought to light in your recounts. Looking through past journals could make you feel even more grateful and nostalgic for what you have.