Top 10 Journaling Prompts for Depression
Finding an outlet to express your overwhelming thoughts can be difficult, but therapeutic journaling can help you healthily express challenging emotions. Journaling can be an easy outlet to help cope with depression and understand it without breaking the bank. Even if you journal for a few minutes daily, it can become a healthy habit that helps your mental health. Go to the store, pick out a cute journal or your favorite colored composition notebook, pair it with a nice pen, and go at it. Write what's on your mind and destress whenever you find the time, as I often do. If you’re having trouble getting started, how about some prompts to get the juices flowing? Here are 10 of my favorites:
1. What emotion is more frequent today? Where in my body can I feel it?
Try to re-engage with yourself and reconnect your body and mind to find what and where your emotions are coming from and how they make you feel. It can be easy to feel disconnected from yourself while dealing with life’s stress, and this prompt can help you reconnect.
2. If I could change one thing in my life right now, what would it be, and how can I start changing it?
Embracing change can help you discover who you are and what you like, and starting small by changing one thing that could improve your life can be the push you need to open yourself up to change and help improve your life and mental health.
3. When was the time you felt deeply at peace? Write about everything you can remember. What did you hear, taste, see, feel, and smell when you think of this moment?
Similar to prompt 1, by re-engaging yourself and your mind with your body, you can feel the same senses you felt when you were feeling deeply at peace, identify how that felt, and recreate those feelings again.
4. What is something you are looking forward to in the future?
Think about something coming up; it can be something minor, like watching a movie or show you have been waiting to see, or something big, like a concert or vacation you have in the future.
5. Write about a happy memory in detail.
Remembering a time when you were happy can help you feel those happy emotions again and remind you to be optimistic for more happy memories you will experience, and can help be a source of resilience and strength.
6. What is one self-care practice I can add to my daily routine?
Practicing self-care can help increase your energy, help you manage stress, and lower your risk of illness. Even just small acts of self-care in your day-to-day life can have significant impacts on your mental health.
7. What made you upset today?
Remembering why you felt a certain way when something happened and what you did to deal with that emotion can be essential. It can help you understand your feelings more clearly and help you know why you got upset, how you tend to deal with them, and how you can gain control of them.
8. When was the last time you did something nice for yourself?
Remembering how long or recently you did something nice for yourself can be an excellent reminder to do something nice for yourself again and reflect on what you did for yourself and how it made you feel. Doing good acts for yourself can increase your happiness, optimism, and satisfaction and remind you to prioritize the nice things you can do for yourself.
9. What has worked in the past to ease my depression, and what steps can I take to alleviate my depression?
Try to remember things that have worked in the past with your depression, from the small stuff to the big ones, and how those things can help with your depression again or what other new tools and activities you can try to incorporate and do to help improve your mental health.
10. When things start to feel stiff, what are some things you want to remember?
Some days will be better, and staying positive on more challenging days can be crucial. Write down some things you might want to read back on and remind yourself of on days that are particularly difficult to get through.
Remember that journaling is supposed to be an outlet for you to express yourself and can be a promising intervention against depressive feelings and thoughts, so don't feel too stressed out and overwhelmed on what to write and how to write it, and instead let these prompts and your thoughts guide your writing to help cope with your depression and feelings.