Journaling - a good way to 'brain dump'

​Anisha suggests that journaling is a good way to clear the brain of the 'clutter' it might have acquired - whether as a creative practice, or practical way to get ideas down. 

If you’re coming to the end of a hefty exam season, you’ll probably be facing a long summer. Aside from providing time for tumbleweeds and existential spirals, this space provides a well deserved opportunity for rest. In this blog, I’ll be talking about how journaling can be a tool to relax. 
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Needless to say, resting takes on different forms. On days off, my mum usually pulls up her sleeves and starts uprooting weeds at some attempt to garden. My dad prefers a more couch potato approach, and puts on whatever’s playing on BT sports. I suppose some people could even consider running a 10k as their form of rest. In her book 'The Art of Rest', Claudia Hammond notes that of all different forms, reading is considered the most popular way to unwind. Even including more intense physical activity, all rest usually aims to filter down attention, and shift our focus onto a different type of energy. 
The more, so-called ‘passive’ version of rest, which some would place journaling under, engages a lot with reflection and slowing down. Jotting flimsy pieces of thoughts onto scraps of paper can, I believe, be a brilliant form of unwinding. It provides a place of emptying. Similar to writing lists, you are able to release what’s being stored as more abstract clouds of thoughts into something which you can see in front of you. There’s certainly a relief to be had by physically creating something in front of you. There have been plenty of studies to show how creating a habit soothes the mind, so creating a specific slot in the day to see what you can do could be worth a try. 

The thought of journaling can be daunting to some, and it can be hard to know exactly where to start. Like any artistic practice (which I consider it to be) it is something which you can play around with, and hone into what suits your needs more. There's freestyle journaling, where (yep, you guessed it) you pick up a pen and write whatever comes to mind. Or, one of the most popular, and slightly more structured methods, is the bullet journal. There are many guides with different techniques and ideas to prompt you, along with some questions you could regularly ask yourself when you sit down to write. 

It can be interesting to set an 'intention' with journaling. For me, it is often a creative practice and a way I start my writing, and therefore influences what I write and what I don’t. As I introduced it in this blog, using journaling as a way to unwind will have its own guidelines you could think about, more tailored to the things you’d like to reflect upon, future ponderings or action plans. Often, with the vast exposure we have to consuming content, our journaling, often reflecting how we think, gets carried away into the abyss of ‘useless junk floating creating head clutter’. It’s really important to notice this, almost as if it were a meditation. There is a fine strike to make between immersing and engaging with your musings and being able to take a distanced approach of acknowledging them as thoughts. Using a diary to relax could often mean thinking beforehand about a certain theme or intent to stick to (and could, for others, just as much mean going feral and scrawling about anything that comes to mind). 

Whilst a journal can be used for many sorts of things, I’d definitely recommend starting a diary, or some form of note-keeping, as a way to unwind. Or, if you already have, playing with different styles. 

Read of the Month 

Rest: issue five by SINK magazine (@sink_magazine)

I wrote more on the theme of rest, specifically with its relationship to journaling (and throwing in some twelfth century Japanese monks for fun) in the magazine I co-edit. The current issue “Rest” has some brilliant creatives, featuring art, essays and short stories. All of our profits go to support causes for Palestine. You can order physical and PDF copies  from £3. 

Author

Anisha Minocha is studying English and Spanish at the University of St Andrews, currently living in Andalucía. She is a writer and poet whose work has been showcased in winning competitions, readings and anthologies. She co-edits SINK Magazine, which gives a platform to Northern creatives, and founded the "Roots"" project with Friends of the Earth that looks at the intersections between South Asian identity and ecology. Twitter: @anisha_jaya.

Picture by: Shifa Sarguru