The Unexpected Benefits of Journaling (Especially If You're Neurospicy)

When I started journaling back in 2020, I knew it was going to provide some level of insight into what I was internally struggling with. But I never knew it would have so many other profound benefits. From mental health clarity to better memory recall, journaling has helped me in ways I never expected. Today I’m highlighting a few unexpected benefits of journaling — and maybe giving you the nudge to start your own practice.

Journaling & Cycle Syncing

One unexpected mental health benefit of journaling was that I started noticing patterns in how I handled hard situations — especially based on the time of the month. Tracking my emotions and energy levels helped me sync up with my cycle. And that awareness? It let me show myself more grace when I was in a rough patch and adjust my schedule so I wasn’t overloading myself during the hardest days.

Journaling to Build Confidence 

My method of mental health journaling involves me shouting myself out for things I’m proud of. It’s impossible not to build self assurance along the way. When you start seeing all the ways you win each day, via your own determination, creativity, or whatever other skill that you needed - it’s hard not to feel good about what.

BONUS BENE: if your confidence is up, you won’t tolerate people that don’t see your greatness. ✌️

Journaling for Neurodivergent Record Keeping

Neurospicy brains aren’t always the best at keeping track of memories…. or keys… hich is why so many of us are drawn to journaling and planning for ADHD or other neurodivergences.

Journaling gave me a record of my life, in my own words. That’s been both healing and clarifying. I know what I wrote down in the moment is true. So when someone tries to rewrite the narrative or deny what happened? I’ve got receipts.

If your bad memory has ever been used against you — or you’ve been gaslit over your lived experience — you know what a gift that kind of internal record keeping really is. Even if someone else refuses to accept your truth, you know what’s real.

Clean out your dirty water cup

When we paint, most of us keep a clean water cup nearby to wash our paintbrushes with as we change from one color to the next. At some point - the clean water cup becomes the dirty water cup.

Inevitably, the dirty water cup will get so muddled with paint that it must be cleaned before you can do any other painting or risk getting the dirty paint water into your paints or worse - your canvas.

Journaling is a lot like cleaning out your dirty water cup. It's an emotional rinse.

You might not want to do it, but if you want a clean canvas going forward, it’s important to spill some of that dirt on to the page.

And to take this metaphor a step further - you might have forgotten what colors of paint you used along the way. When you wash your cup out, those colors might be the ones that remain in the bottom the longest.

The good news is you can rinse and repeat as many times as needed.