Journaling for Self-care— Self care…there’s far more to it than simply eating right and taking time to relax. The idea of self-care encompasses not only your body, but also your emotions, spirit, and mind. It involves practices and rituals that ensure you’re taking care of your overall well-being each day. Self-care includes sticking to habits that make you happier and healthier.
Taking time for daily self-care offers numerous benefits. Routine self-care can:
- Make you feel good physically and emotionally
- Help you maintain a healthy weight more easily
- Helps you to be more connected and productive
- Prevents illness and disease
- Improves longevity
- Improves overall quality of life
Don’t underestimate the power of self-care. An increasing amount of research suggests that daily self-care can improve recovery from disease, lower the duration of the flu and colds, promote better focus, and more.
Outer Self-Care Practices
- Take a long bath and relax
- Take five minutes to declutter
- Spend 5-10 minutes stretching
- Use lotion or other products that make you feel good
- Help someone else
- Walk or run for 10 minutes
- Enjoy playing with a pet
Inner Self-Care Practices
- Read books that you enjoy
- Try meditation
- Enjoy a quick nap
- Praise yourself for something you’ve done
- Learn something new
- Take a fun class
- Write, paint, or choose another creative activity that unleashes creative energy
- Learn how to be mindful
- Enjoy spiritual practices
- Journal
When our lives are jam-packed with work, running errands, and all the other things that get thrown our way, it’s easy to forget to take care of yourself. Self-care is something that we should try to focus on at least once a day, even if you just take a few minutes for yourself. Practicing self-care and wellness not only allows you to get to know yourself, but it can actually help you connect with the people around you!
Journal Printables
If you need help getting started on how to practice self-care, these wellness journal printables from our friends at Shari’s Berries are a perfect way to get in tune with your personal self-care style.
Self-care looks different to everyone, which is why these checklists help you focus on five different types of self-care: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and social. Take note of which activities or moments during the day make you feel best and focus on implementing that more regularly into your life! You deserve it.
Journaling for Self-Care
Journaling is one option for self-care, and it’s especially effective because it can help you increase your awareness of your feelings, clear your mind, and offers a safe place where you can release your emotions and thoughts. Journal keeping can take so many forms – you can choose from a bullet journal, art journaling, digital journals, and more. Some of the great ways you can use journaling for self-care include:
- Practicing Gratitude – Practicing gratitude helps shift your mindset from one of stress, scarcity, and negativity to one of thankfulness, positivity, and abundance. An easy way to begin practicing gratitude is to write short lists of things for which you’re thankful every day. It’s a very simple yet powerful way that you can lift your spirits and improve your overall well-being.
- Clear Your Mind – A quiet mind offers so many benefits, and one way to silence your mind is to simply dump the thoughts in your brain into a journal. Write until there’s nothing left. Get your worries, to-do list, and thoughts down on paper so you can let go.
- Indulge in Your Biggest Dreams – Sometimes big dreams can be scary, but journaling gives you a safe place to talk about your dreams without the fear of being judged. Writing about your dreams can help give you the confidence you need to pursue them and see them come true.
- Explore Your Feelings – Everyone has days when they feel off, but sometimes it’s difficult to determine why you feel that way. In many cases, there’s a specific problem or worry that you need to address. Instead of brushing off your feelings, use journaling to dig deeper and explore your feelings. The more aware you are of your feelings, the better able you are to address issues or work on accepting things you’re unable to change.
10 Journal Prompts for Self-Care
- How do I feel today? Why am I feeling that way?
- If you weren’t afraid, what would you do?
- Make a list of 20 things that make you smile.
- What can you learn from the biggest mistakes you’ve made?
- Make a list of things you’d like to say ‘no!’ to.
- What makes you so unique?
- How have you changed from the person that you were five or ten years ago? Are they positive changes? How would you like to change in the future?
- Think about the happiest moment in your life. What were you doing, who were you with, and where were you?
- Write down your own bucket list.
- What can you change or do in your life to focus more on our overall wellbeing and health?
More Self Care Journal Ideas
Until next time, write on…
If you enjoyed these Journal Printables and Journaling Prompts for Self-Care,
please share them on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Pinterest.
I appreciate it!
Sincerely,
Jill
journalbuddies.com
creator and curator
PS Check out this helpful resource—> Creative Journaling for Self Care
