Gratitude journaling can boost happiness, reduce anxiety, and enhance relationships despite initial distress and anxiety
Writing about negative experiences in gratitude journaling can lead to mental drain but is important for therapeutic purposes
Journaling about difficult experiences for four consecutive days or once a week over four weeks can yield mental health benefits
Writing for 15 to 30 minutes allows for reflection and processing of experiences, promoting psychological well-being and potential therapeutic effects (Time 0:00:00)
The Challenging yet Beneficial Protocol of Gratitude Journaling
Summary:
Gratitude journaling has shown to offer numerous benefits such as boosting happiness, reducing anxiety, and enhancing relationships.
However, the protocol of writing about negative experiences in gratitude journaling can initially lead to distress, tears, breath-holding, and anxiety. Subjects often feel mentally drained after the writing session, likening it to running a marathon.
It is crucial to allow oneself time to calm down and transition back into daily life after the writing session.
This challenging aspect of the protocol helps individuals delve into their most negative experiences for therapeutic purposes.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
If there are data to support that gratitude journaling in particular can be very beneficial for both body and mind, everything from improving general states of happiness to reducing Anxiety, improving relationships, and on and on. But to get back to the protocol that we're talking about today, you probably noticed that it is not a protocol that's likely to feel very good, at least not at first. And indeed, that's what the research shows. And this is something that you really need to be aware of, that when subjects are given this research assignment, during the assignment, they are often quite distraught. Oftentimes they cry. Oftentimes they find themselves holding their breath and anxiety. Oftentimes they'll finish that 15 to 30 minute writing block. And they'll feel as if they had run a mental marathon, and therefore the subjects were given a period of five to 15 minutes post writing to settle down and transition back into their day. So I highly recommend that you incorporate that into your protocol as well. So if you're going to allow yourself say 20 minutes to write, you want to give yourself probably 10 minutes of quiet time to, you know, bring your composure back and reset yourself so That you can reenter daily living. Because the writing that you're going to do for this particular protocol is designed to tap into very negative, if not the most negative experiences of your life. And so that's something to be taken seriously. (Time 0:17:45)
Repeated journaling about difficult experiences for mental health benefits
Summary:
Journaling about the most difficult life experiences for four consecutive days or once a week over four weeks can yield mental health benefits.
Writing for 15 to 30 minutes each session allows for reflection and processing of these experiences, promoting psychological well-being and potential therapeutic effects.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So students or people from the general population or veterans were literally coming into the laboratory and sitting down and writing about the most difficult experience of their Life that they could recall for 15 to 30 minutes on one day. And then again, on the next day, and then the next day and the next day. So much of the data on this particular journaling method reflects that four consecutive days of 15 to 30 minute writing bouts of the most difficult experience that you can recall. However, there have been variations on this protocol such that people selected one day per week, and it doesn't even have to be the same day, like every Monday, it could be Monday of one Week and then Wednesday of the next week and so on, such that you write only one day per week about the most difficult experience you can recall. And then you write about that same difficult experience one week later, and then again one week later and then again one week later across the course of a month or any four week period For that matter. Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear that, that I'm going to need to write about the most difficult experience of my entire life that I can recall for even 15 minutes, let alone 30 Minutes, let alone two times. And here we're talking about four times, perhaps even on four consecutive days. (Time 0:20:33)
