Written by: Rita Farruggia, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Are you looking for a way to take control of your mental health, increasing your self-awareness and well-being? You can start by writing in a self-care journal, you can gain valuable insights into your behavior while also enjoying the benefits of self-nurturing. When you're taking time out of each day to work on your mental and physical health, it can feel so liberating because you are freeing yourself from negative emotions from the past or present that are inhibiting your expansion of thinking in possibilities (mental flexibility) thereby limiting your actions to activate the life you desire. Plus, you do feel better when you do it because you are releasing your emotions onto paper and you are becoming more aware of your thoughts, feelings, beliefs and values that direct your behavior. This allows you to know the reasons why you act the way you do.
Not a lot of people enjoy journaling. Most avoid it like the plague. You shouldn’t avoid it because there are so many benefits to journaling. Here we'll explore what makes journaling good for you and how to get started on your self-care journal.
What is a Self-Care Journal?
A self-care journal is a notebook or diary where you can write down anything you want to improve about your life, including physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. You can also use it as an outlet for feelings, thoughts, and ideas that may be difficult to express in other ways. In fact, a study has shown that people with PTSD who regularly wrote down their trauma in their self-care journal, reduced their symptoms of PTSD. This study was published in the journal called, “Psychotherapy”.
Journaling can help you cope with stress, anxiety and depression. It can help you process trauma or difficult times in your life. Another study has shown that people who regularly journal reduced their symptoms of anxiety and depression. This study was published in the journal called, “Clinical Psychology Review”. It can also help you connect with your inner self and build self-awareness.
Self-Care Journal Ideas
Keeping a self-care journal can be as simple as writing down one thing you did for yourself daily. Or, if you want to go more in-depth, you could have multiple categories for different types of self-care (for example, eating well, skin care, meditation, physical exercise and doing yoga). You can also include the date it happened and any other notes that seem relevant. This will help keep track of your progress over time and make it easier to see what types of things work best for you. If you are looking for plant-based recipes for eating well, you can download a free plant-based recipes e-book at HappyBeingWell.com.
If you need some inspiration or ideas for things to include in your self-care journal, you can download a complimentary self-care journal at Happybeingwell.com. Where you'll get to answer fifty questions designed to dive deep into your unconscious to identify your unconscious desires, fears, beliefs and values that direct your conscious behavior. Also, this free self-care journal provides inspiration and ideas for self-care activities.
Types of Selfcare Routines
There are many types of self-care routines:
Mental Self-Care: Mental self-care includes practicing gratitude, journaling, and meditation. Meditation can be great as its relaxing self-care activities can put you into a calm and peaceful state. Those who want to learn to meditate effectively can download a free Meditation Made Easy E-Guide and use it to learn more about how to meditate easily.
Emotional Self-Care: This self-care involves activities that help us positively manage our emotions and feelings. Examples include talking to friends, talking to a therapist, participating in an emotional support group, journaling, listening to music, meditating, and exercising.
Practical Self-Care: This self-care involves activities that help us positively manage our responsibilities. Examples include cooking healthy meals for yourself, cleaning your home/apartment/office space regularly, making doctor appointments (or keeping them), making sure your bills get paid on time, etc.
Social Self-Care: Social self-care involves having meaningful relationships with other people who can provide support in times of need or celebration. Volunteering can also provide you with meaningful social interactions through helping others and connecting with others who share the same values as you.
Spiritual Self-Care: Spiritual self-care involves connecting with something larger than yourself through prayer or meditation.
Physical Self-Care: This self-care includes eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, skincare routines, getting enough sleep and taking time for relaxation. For your skincare routine, it is important to use all-natural skincare products because it is related to your physical health because you don’t want to have toxic chemical build-up in your body which can lead you to not feel your best such as fatigue, mental fog, sleeplessness, poor digestion among other things. Using natural essential oils is related to physical care because using natural essential oils as aromatherapy helps calm your nervous system to recover from stress and anxiety so you can feel recharged and gain mental clarity.
Self-Care Products
Essential oil
Natural Essential oils are a great way to get some natural self-care into your routine. Essential oils are soothing and can be used in many different ways, from massages to diffusing them in an aromatherapy diffuser in your home. By incorporating all-natural essential oils into your daily life, you will be able to ensure that your body receives the much-needed support to counteract the stress of daily life.
Essential oils are made from plants. They smell amazing and have many health benefits as well. You want to ensure you are using an all-natural essential oil to avoid toxic overload in your body. You can try different natural essential oils to see which ones you like the best. You can find all-natural essential oils at Happybeingwell.com. You can write in your self-care journal how each essential oil makes you feel when smelling the oil in your home. You can also add a few drops of lavender oil that is diluted with a carrier oil to your bath to enhance muscle relaxation while taking a hot bath.
Here are some of the most popular essential oils that you can use in your aromatherapy diffuser for self-care:
Rose
Lavender
Peppermint
Jasmine
Orange
Patchouli
Use a Natural Facial Mask to Meditate With
Natural Face masks are a great way to take care of your skin. They feel soothing and healing when applied to your skin, therefore, calming your nervous system. As you are waiting for your facial mask to dry in ten to fifteen minutes, you can meditate while waiting for your facial mask to dry, you can hold crystals in the palms of your hands since holding crystals feels relaxing to your body. You can write in your self-care journal how these crystals feel and what your meditation experience was like. If you had any new ideas during your meditation session to record them in your self-care journal plus recording your facial mask and meditation sessions is a great way to track your time towards self-care. Plus, committing to regularly using a natural facial mask improves the appearance of your skin, leading to clearer, youthful and more radiant skin. It is important to choose a facial mask that works best for your skin type and the skin issues you want to address.
Here are some of the most popular natural facial masks at Happybeingwell.com.
Rhassoul (Moroccan Lava) Clay
Detoxifying Smoothie Mask
Bentonite Clay – Aged Volcanic Ash
Dead Sea Mud Mask
Rose Clay – French Pink Kaolin
Importance of Using the Self-Care Journal
The Self-Care Journal is a tool to help us take care of ourselves. It can be used for a variety of purposes, including:
To help you keep track of your progress so that you can see how far you’ve come and what still needs to be worked on.
As a way to record your feelings and thoughts about your self-care activities and exercises. Plus, a healthy way to release stress and anxiety.
As a way to feel good about yourself by seeing all the positive things you’re doing for yourself.
As an opportunity to reflect on how well your self-care practices are going and cultivate a stronger relationship with yourself.
It helps you focus on essential aspects of your life including your mental health and well-being.
It is a way to get to know yourself better and ensure your actions align with your beliefs, values and passions.
Ideas and Steps for Starting a Self-Care Journal
Start small: You don’t need a fancy journal or expensive supplies. Just find something that feels good in your hands and get started.
Create a space for yourself: Find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted during your sessions. Make sure there are no distractions like TVs or phone notifications.
Choose a comfortable medium: Some people prefer writing with pen and paper, while others enjoy typing on their computers or phone. If you don’t know what kind of journaling works best for you, try out different options until something clicks.
Don’t stress about what to write: Start by simply writing down the things that matter most to you. It could be anything from goals for the week, daily affirmations, what you are grateful for or general notes about how you feel or what happened during the day.
Be consistent: Make sure you set aside time each day (or week) when you can sit down and write in your journal. Write in your self-care journal first thing in the morning, before bed, or even during your lunch break at work — whatever works best for your schedule.
Takeaway
The importance of self-care should not be taken lightly. It's an investment in your mental health and well-being. The return on this investment in your self-care will last a lifetime. Therefore, you should incorporate it into your daily routine to improve your well-being so you can live happy being well.
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Rita Farruggia, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Rita Farruggia is the CEO and Founder of HappyBeingWell.com, with the mission of being the 1 Self-Care Community in the world. Her mission is to awaken a billion people globally to their love while teaching them how to love themselves, reprogram their subconscious, align with truth, universal laws, and create a daily spiritual practice that involves self-care practices. HappyBeingWell.com offers the tools/products, education, and inspiration to use in our daily spiritual & self-care practice. Rita believes a daily spiritual practice is not limited to yoga and/or meditation. The truth is when we are manually cleaning our dishes, we often go into a trance. This is also a form of meditation. Rita believes our personal hygiene (self-care) and home cleaning sessions can also be our spiritual practices. Self-care and spiritual practices changed Rita's life, increased her ability to love herself.
