Journaling For PMDD
As a person affected by PMDD, keeping a journal can be a great idea. Journaling is a simple activity with a significant return on your investment. It is simply writing down your personal thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly. Though starting journaling is not easy, it has however been shown to have significant mental, emotional and physical health benefits as well as improvement in overall quality of life. It can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health
Benefits of Journaling for PMDD
Better self-awareness: Routinely writing down your feelings about PMDD and other situations in your life can help you understand it better. Journaling helps prioritize problems, fears, and concerns, provides a new perspective and a clearer understanding of events, situations and people. For people suffering with PMDD journaling helps with symptoms-tracking, leading to better understanding of symptoms, triggers and possibly better coping mechanisms and a better emotional well-being.
Stress Reduction: The act of writing about anger, sadness and other painful emotions is a very effective way to release the intensity of these feelings. By doing so you will feel calmer and better able to stay in the present.
Clarity of Thought and Problem Solving: One of the many symptoms of PMDD is foggy thought. Journaling is a very effective way of arriving quicker to more clearer thought by getting you to more in touch with your inner conversations with yourself. Sometimes just writing without self editing brings in focus the problems and situation and will even provide a roadmap to better solutions and resolutions.
Explore the many different types of journaling
There are so many different types of journals out there. Here are a few different types of journaling options to consider:
Gratitude journal: This type of journaling is to help change those negative thought patterns that start reflecting back as physical, emotional, mental and spiritual symptoms. To start this type of journal, make a list of 20-25 things you are grateful for that day upon rising in the morning and repeat in the evening before bed to close out the day. These items can be as little as “am grateful I have a pair of shoes” to ``am grateful for this new home”. Do it consistently until the change takes hold.
Releasing Journal: There are times in life you have to get things off your chest but you are uncomfortable voicing it out loud, well the releasing journal is the place to go. This is free flowing writing that should be completely spontaneous. Write down your thoughts as they happen. The words and thoughts don’t need to make sense or be grammatically correct. This is capturing your thoughts as they occur without any judgment. This act can be very very freeing as it allows you to release and let go of those negative thought
Food journal: With PMDD, certain foods exacerbate the symptoms. Make a note of what you’ve eaten each day. Documenting what you ate can offer insight into areas you may need to change as well as help you be more mindful about the foods you choose to eat.
No matter which type of journal you decide to keep, remember there is no right or wrong approach. It’s all up to you. The simple act of taking the time to get in touch with your mind, body, and spirit is what’s truly important. Make it easy, write everyday so it becomes a habit. The benefits can be very very significant in the end.
