This month on The Happiness Challenge, Klaudia wraps up our journaling series with a deep dive into the science behind the habit.

In Part 3, Klaudia shares her personal approach to journaling and encourages you to give it a try - whether you’re a seasoned writer or just curious. While journaling might sound like a soft, fluffy habit, it’s actually been studied for decades. In this episode, Klaudia explores what the research really says about journaling’s impact on stress and wellbeing, breaking down key findings and practical takeaways. Tune in now!

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Hello happiness seekers. My name is Claudia. Welcome back to the Happiness Challenge. This month is all about journaling.

In the episode 219 we have heard from the executive coach and speaker Madeline McQueen how journaling creates mental space. Remember, it was all about reducing the swirl and bringing clarity.

And in the episode 220 I have summarized four types of journaling styles and I really do hope that you have followed the challenge and tried two styles and now you have your favorite one. As always, I've been engaging in this challenge alongside you and I realized that I'm going to actually stick to two types of journaling.

One daily and one when I needed too. So the first one is very much about simply writing two three things that I want to remember from the day.

So I started writing in addition to things like what I'm grateful for, also things that make me happy, some special moments and memories with my loved ones, my small win or even simply how I felt that day.

And it I really like this specific type of journaling because it's quite structured, it's quite quick, but I realized that it really helps me to cherish my moments more and it helps me even to remember my life more vividly. I was like why?

I actually remember better what happened across last weeks because every day I'm writing few things that I really want to cherish from that day. Otherwise I definitely feel like I might be on autopilot, moving from moment to the next without really stopping and pausing.

Definitely enjoyed this more structured daily check in.

And the second type of journaling which I've definitely done in the past, but I kind of put the journal away and kind of maybe haven't reached out for it as often as I need to is more a free form and I'm trying now to use that more often across the week before I go to sleep to park my thoughts again rather than having this expectation that after a hectic day I have time, I have just ability to close my eyes and go to sleep.

I just take few moments even in bullet points just to process my emotions, structure my thinking, park some faults and sometimes even it is to park creative swirl I have of all the different ideas that are in my head and this journaling definitely is going to happen and was happening when I needed it. But I definitely done it more often because of this month challenge.

So I do hope that you have tried some of the different journaling types and you have the one that you know sticks with you, agrees with you or you're going to do so in the future. Now journaling can sound a little bit like a soft fluffy habit, but it has been actually studied for decades now.

In this episode I will look at what research suggests journaling can do for stress and well being. So research studied journaling from a little bit different perspectives and it very much agrees on the following findings.

So definitely it has been shown that expressive writing can support mental and physical health.

So there is quite large body of research on expressive writing when you are writing about thoughts and feelings around stressful experiences and that actually suggests improved well being and also improve physical health.

So it's really interesting to understand that journaling isn't only to be writing about nice story, but it's very much a place where we give a brain time to process and organize our emotional material. The second aspect around journaling is that it can help emotional regulation.

And after people engage in labeling emotion in their journal, they experience reduced amygdala activity that is responsible for our emotional processing and increase prefrontal regulation which is more about managing our emotions. So if you don't know what to write, the key takeaway from this research is that start with naming emotions I feel and just name them.

And that can in itself be very quick beneficial exercise. The third really interesting insights from recent about journaling is writing can help make meaning and help us to cognitively process.

And again, it's about the fact that when we have this mental swirl, which I mentioned in different episodes and has been mentioned by my guest, journaling help us to create a coherent narrative and integrate different experiences and it can actually allow us to also understand what story are we repeating on autopilot in our head. And lots of very interesting studies that shows that writing have improved health outcomes because of that cognitive processing.

So practical takeaway here is clarity often comes after you write, not before. So when we sit down to start writing, we don't necessarily need to know what we want to write.

The idea is that we just writing to engage in that cognitive processing and therefore we have the sense of clarity afterwards. Aha, this is what I'm telling myself. Aha, this is what I'm truly thinking. Aha, this is what's on my mind.

And the final one, which I think we won't be surprised about, is about journaling. Plus gratitude.

And there is entire separate research that absolutely shows that gratitude practices overall increase positive effect and increases our life satisfaction.

Journaling works best when it's very specific. Specific and believable, not forced. If you have days when you think, oh, I really cannot.

I don't necessarily feel I'm grateful for something, it's okay, maybe come back to it later. It has to be something that we feel. Yeah, I'm truly grateful for this.

Rather than okay, let me write that I'm grateful for my food because that's what I should be grateful for.

And if you want to dive deeper into the topic of gratitude, which I think is absolutely fascinating because it is one of the habits that has the power to completely rewire our brain, you can check out my chapter about gratitude in my book the Alphabet of Happiness. Because it's so important, I dedicated entire chapter to this concept. So in summary, why journaling works?

If anytime anyone asks you, or maybe you have a cynical friend and or a partner and they like, why are you journaling now? We have all those journals running around the house. Why are you even bothering to do it? We have four specific aspects.

We have that cognitive offloading. We're moving our thoughts from head to page and that reduces our mental load. We have emotional processing.

We are naming our feelings which reduces intensity and increases our choices. We have that narrative coherence. We are helping our brain to actually structure and file almost the experience.

And often we have also problem solving that once the swirl is on the paper, we can see what the step become visible and we have that clarity. And finally, of course we have this aspect of gratitude. We can engage in the act of appreciating our life.

So how can we actually journal in a kind of science aligned way? If you like very five minute easy structure could be name your feeling. Right now I feel name the trigger. This is coming up because Name the meaning.

The story I'm telling myself is about this. Reframe it gently. Another possible explanation is. Or maybe I could choose one step. One small next step I can take is this.

And finally, even in this situation, one thing I'm grateful for is. So thank you so much for listening and I will see you next month.

It will be March, which is very special for me overall because it's my birthday and it's my husband's birthday as well. But also this year I'll be in Costa Rica.

I have been invited to speak at the Global Growth Happiness Summit that is hosted by United Nation Established University for Peace. I'll be speaking there about the science of happiness.

I am beyond excited, so frankly, I don't know what march will bring on the Happiness Challenge podcast. You need to stay tuned in to find out.

And if you are up for receiving updates about that summit, you can subscribe to my substack newsletter via my website, thehappinesschallenge.com I wish you a great month ahead and I wish you lots of positive journaling. Thank you so much. Bye.