The Transformative Power of Journaling

February 23, 2024 | 4 min read

The modern world is filled with constant noise and distractions, and finding moments quiet enough to hear our own thoughts can be difficult. However, one simple practice has stood the test of time as a powerful tool for introspection and personal growth: journaling.

The beauty of journaling is that you don't have to consider yourself "a writer" in order to do it. Whether you're jotting down your thoughts before bed or typing away during your lunch break, simply transforming your invisible thoughts and feelings into visible words on a page (or screen) is a powerful act.

Working through your thoughts and emotions — giving yourself time to actually think and check in with yourself in a busy world — can have profound mental and emotional effects.

Let's explore five of the key benefits of journaling, and then we'll give some practical advice anyone can use to start their own journaling practice.

 

5 Key Benefits of Journaling

It would take an entire book to outline the benefits of journaling, but here are a few of our favorites:

  1. Clarity: Journaling provides a space for you to untangle your thoughts and gain clarity on your emotions and experiences. Writing about your day, your goals, or the challenges you face allows you to step back and reflect on your experiences from a new perspective. It also helps separate out the millions of thoughts running through your head on a given day. This can help you identify patterns, gain insights, and make more informed decisions about life.
  2. Mental Health: The act of journaling has been shown to reduce stress levels and promote emotional well-being. When you write about your worries, fears, or anxieties, you externalize them onto the page, which can provide a sense of release and also distance to see them more clearly. Additionally, journaling allows you to express and process your emotions in a safe and non-judgmental space. This can help you manage overwhelming feelings and regulate your emotions more effectively, leading to greater emotional resilience and mental health.
  3. Accountability: Journaling can be a powerful way to set and track your goals. By writing down your hopes and dreams (from the big ones that don't seem possible to the small, everyday intentions), you make them tangible and concrete. This makes it easier to come up with action plans and gives you a way to track your progress. Regularly reflecting on your successes and setbacks keeps you accountable — and motivated to keep going!
  4. Creativity: Journaling inspires innovative thinking. Engaging in free-flow writing exercises, such as stream-of-consciousness writing or freewriting, can help you tap into your subconscious mind, think in new ways, and unlock insights and unexpected solutions to problems. Moreover, the act of writing itself can stimulate cognitive processes that enhance memory, learning, and critical thinking skills.
  5. Self-Discovery: Perhaps the most profound benefit of journaling is the opportunity for self-discovery and personal growth. As you pour out your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, you embark on a journey of self-expression, which inevitably leads to self-discovery. Over time, you may uncover hidden talents, discover new passions, or gain a deeper understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. Journaling allows you to document your evolution over time, providing a valuable record of your innermost thoughts and experiences.

 

Start with Freewriting

The term "freewriting" is often associated with American writer and educator Peter Elbow, who wrote about the technique in his book Writing Without Teachers published in 1973. The method emerged as a way to foster uninhibited expression via a writing process that lets thoughts flow freely without pausing to edit or judge.

The concept is similar to the stream-of-consciousness writing of many literary greats like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, who sought to capture the raw flow of thoughts without the interference of self-censorship.

We suggest starting with freewriting when you begin a journaling practice. It couldn't be simpler to start:

  1. Find a quiet space and set a timer for a designated period, like 10 or 15 minutes.
  2. Turn off nearby electronics or place them in another room, including your phone. Take a deep breath and clear your mind of any internal distractions.
  3. If you don't know where to start, try a writing prompt or simply start with whatever comes to mind.
  4. Write continuously, without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or whether what you're writing is "good." Just allow your thoughts to flow freely, capturing every idea that arises, no matter how trivial or seemingly unrelated. Remember, the goal is simply self-expression.
  5. When the timer goes off, you can keep writing if you're in the zone, or you can end there. Reread what you've written, or put it away to reread at another time.

Find more helpful instructions for freewriting here.

 

Journaling on Freewrite

Whether you're seeking clarity, self-reflection, or the release of stress, Freewrite devices are the ideal tool for journaling. Every device in our lineup fosters a distraction-free environment crucial for introspection and creative expression. With our minimalist design, digital clutter is stripped away, allowing you to immerse yourself fully in your thoughts — without the constant allure of notifications or internet distractions.

The keyboards on our devices are also specially designed to give a tactile experience that enhances the sensory connection between mind and words.

Of course, Freewrite's seamless integration with cloud storage ensures peace of mind, safeguarding your journal, and you can even add a password to your device so that only you can access it.

So what are you waiting for? Pick out your Freewrite and start journaling your way to a happier, healthier, and more authentic life!

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Right now, the choice for a writer to use artificial intelligence (AI) or not has been largely a personal one. Some view it as a killer of creativity, while others see it as an endless well of inspiration.

But what if, in the future, your choice had larger implications on the state of literature as a whole?

This is the question that’s being raised from a new study by the University of Exeter Business School: If you could use AI to improve your own writing, at the expense of the overall literary experience, would you?

Let’s explore some context before you answer.

The Set Up

The 2024 study recruited 293 writers to write an eight-sentence “micro” story. The participants were split into three groups:

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Then, 600 evaluators judged how creative these short stories were. The results confirmed a widely accepted idea but also offered a few surprising findings.

Prompts from AI Can Jumpstart the Creative Process

Right off the bat, the reviewers rated the AI-guided stories as being more original, better written, and more enjoyable to read. (Interesting to note that they did not find them funnier than the fully human-inspired stories.)

This actually isn’t that surprising. Most writers know the “blank page dread” at the beginning of a project. Even as I write this, I can’t help but wonder, “If I had been tasked with writing an eight-sentence story, what the heck would I have written about?”

Many writers share this sense of needing to pick the “right” story to tell. And that uniquely human concept of perfectionism can end up actually inhibiting our creative process.

A prompt, then, can help us quickly clear this mental hurdle. To test this, I’ll give you one, courtesy of ChatGPT: “Write a story about a teenager who discovers a mysterious journal that reveals hidden secrets about their town, leading them on an unexpected adventure to uncover the truth.”

Can you feel your creative juices flowing already?

Since its release, AI has been celebrated for its ability to assist in idea generation; and this study confirms how effective using artificial intelligence in this way can be for writers — some, it seems, more than others.

AI-Generated Ideas Helped Less Creative Writers More

It doesn’t feel great to judge a writer’s creative prowess, but for this study, researchers needed to do just that. Prior to writing their short stories, the writers took a test to measure their creativity.

Researchers found that those considered less creative did substantially better when given AI-generated ideas — to the point where getting the full five ideas from AI “effectively equalizes the creativity scores across less and more creative writers.”

This isn’t the case just for writing. Another study by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship WZ also found that AI tools most benefit employees with weaker skills.

So is AI leveling the playing field between okay and great writers? It seems it may be. But before we lament, there’s one more finding that proves using AI isn’t all perks.

AI-Aided Stories Were More Similar — And Needed to Be Credited

The researchers took a step back to look at all the AI-supported stories collectively. And what did they find?

The AI-assisted stories were more similar as a whole, compared to the fully human-written stories.

Additionally, when reviewers were told that a story was enhanced by an AI idea, they “imposed an ownership penalty of at least 25%,” even indicating that “the content creators, on which the models were based, should be compensated.”

This leads us to that all-important question about AI-assisted work: who owns the content?

According to Originality.AI, an AI and plagiarism detector, “When there’s a combination of AI and human-generated elements, the human elements may receive copyright protection if they meet the requirements.”

So right now, if a writer uses AI to generate ideas — but writes the content themselves — they retain rights to the work.

However, Originality.AI even admits that “the legal system is having a hard time keeping up” with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. Time will only tell what AI regulations will look like in a few years.

What Does an AI-Assisted Literary Future Look Like?

The researchers from the University of Exeter Business School study raise an interesting point about what the future landscape for writers may look like. If droves of authors begin using AI to come up with ideas, we may end up with a lot of well-written yet dime-a-dozen stories.

So will human beings choose the easier, but less diverse, path? Or will we stick to fighting through writer’s block armed with nothing but our own brain?

Or, a third option: can we somehow learn to harness AI to supercharge our writing process without sacrificing the wholly unique creativity that infuses human creation?

That’s one question that even ChatGPT can’t answer.

Editor's Note: Artificial intelligence may have already transformed writing, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be in control of your own words. Read Astrohaus Founder Adam Leeb's statement on AI and privacy.

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