Mindfulness and Gratitude Journals

Doodling and colouring while not strictly a journal activity, can be if you stick these into your journal 🙂 While doodling, you can reflect on things you are thankful for, or you can focus on the doodles and making the lines connect. There is no wrong option here.

A gratitude journal entry is a space where you can write a list (say 3) things you are grateful for. For example, reading an interesting book, music you like to listen to, morning coffee. If you do get stuck, it’s OK to use google to find examples;

https://www.google.com/search?q=gratitude+journal+examples

or enter “gratitude journal examples” into your search engine.

These activities can benefit your health and happiness. Journaling shares some characteristics of mindfulness (Khramtsova & Glascock, 2010) including;

1. It helps sharpen your focus.
2. It turns your attention inward.
3. It can be used to increase positive thoughts.

(There are many other benefits listed in the article.) Journaling can be  powerful tool used as part of mindfulness interventions. It is cheap, easy to implement, can be performed anywhere and by anyone. While this article only considers gratitude journals, there are other types of journals to write, such as 3 things to look forward to, or 3 things I did today. There isn’t only one type of journaling; instead, there are multiple formats that you can follow. Regardless of the format that you follow, you must take the time to journal regularly and meaningfully. The journal is your personal expression of your feelings and thoughts.

References