Has journaling helped anyone decrease mental chatter?

[Erock]

I don't do a lot of journaling, and am thinking of doing it more. I'm just curious, has journaling helped anyone slow down or eliminate mental chatter by putting all of their ideas down on paper (or the computer)?

Erock

[Gene]

Originally Posted by Erock

I don't do a lot of journaling, and am thinking of doing it more. I'm just curious, has journaling helped anyone slow down or eliminate mental chatter by putting all of their ideas down on paper (or the computer)?

Erock

I journal daily and have been doing so for many years. I use my computer and Microsoft Word. I enter the date and whatever is on my mnd. When things are happening in my life I make as many entries as seems right to me.

I can go back later and look at patterns in my thoughts, emotions and actions as well as stimuli. It is useful to me to identify why I do what I do and to enable me to make decisions that will get me what I want in the future versus getting what I always got when I did what I did unconsciously in the past.

I recommend it to any and all as a way of achieving their dreams in life and understanding from whence they, themselves came.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Erock

I don't do a lot of journaling, and am thinking of doing it more. I'm just curious, has journaling helped anyone slow down or eliminate mental chatter by putting all of their ideas down on paper (or the computer)?

Hi yes, it can be very effective. You may hear from other people that meditation is the best way, and while this is true, it's also true that if your mind is really full of noisy chatter, you will find it very difficult to settle down to meditate. In such a case, you may have more success with journalling than with meditation.

In either case, I find that exercise (eg running) is a good complementary way to burn up excess nervous energy, and then the mind settles.

With journalling, you can reach a point when you run out of things to write (because everything on your mind has been written down already). Then the mind will settle.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by Gene

I can go back later and look at patterns in my thoughts, emotions and actions as well as stimuli. It is useful to me to identify why I do what I do and to enable me to make decisions that will get me what I want in the future versus getting what I always got when I did what I did unconsciously in the past.

I recommend it to any and all as a way of achieving their dreams in life and understanding from whence they, themselves came.

Well said Gene. What you describe is very much like my own experience. I've journalled on and off for the past 13 years. Over that period of time, I can see my patterns of growth, changes in thinking/perpectives, my weaknesses and my strengths. It is a valuable reflection of myself, which was often recorded in times when my own mental chatter was so thick, it fogged up things too much to see/think with clarity at that time.

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

You may hear from other people that meditation is the best way, and while this is true, it's also true that if your mind is really full of noisy chatter, you will find it very difficult to settle down to meditate. In such a case, you may have more success with journalling than with meditation.

In a way, I find journalling itself to be a useful form of meditation, and/or preparation for meditation. It can be used to brain-dump, reflect/expound on your experiences, brainstorm, or create/reinforce affirmations. Usually, no matter how much of a frenzy my mind is in when I start, by the time I'm through with my journal entry, I am in a calm enough state that I could then meditate and/or approach the remainder of my day much more effectively.

[Tristan]

Journaling works at so many levels and the benefits of it are amazing.

In your case, journaling works as a focusing medium to help channel your thoughts and spawn new creative ideas. Journaling works by anchoring your focus down on paper (or computer) and streaming your thoughts in a comprehensible format. As was mentioned before, the act of journaling is very meditative in nature and it helps you to look inward and dump out any mental clutter that is clogging up your mind. Best of all, it is archived permanently for your reflection later on.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by Tristan

Best of all, it is archived permanently for your reflection later on.

This, unfortunately, can also be a disadvantage. Depending on who you live with, and how motivated they are to nose-around...
Over the years, I have had my journals 'violated' on several occasions, and given the personal nature of the contents, it was always quiet unsettling.
There are probably a variety of ways to avoid this (I currently keep my latest one with me almost everywhere I go), but it is just something to keep in mind.

[Tristan]

Very true actually and it's a warranted concern, and just as a person would password protect sensitive documents on their computer, they should also take the same steps to protect sensitive thoughts that they put down on paper as well if they are worried about personal intrusion.

The journals I keep are a record of my existence and legacy and I can't bear to destroy these documents, so they get safely placed in a secured cabinet.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by Tristan

The journals I keep are a record of my existence and legacy and I can't bear to destroy these documents, so they get safely placed in a secured cabinet.

Yes, I feel the same way. It is a dilemma because the only true way for them to be “safe” would be to dispose of them, but at the same time they are my legacy, something that I am not willing to destroy, and something that I believe I have a right to maintain securely.
My older journals have been "lost" (aka securely stored in a cleverly labeled box known only to me) for several years now…

[MercuryLime]

It doesn't eliminate mental chatter - it's not like the words vanish in your head once you write them down - but once you write down everything important, it becomes easier to let go of the mental chatter. In my own life, my moments of intense mental chatter are solved by journaling. An hour of mental chatter is nothing compared to ten minutes of intense journaling, because when you journal, you actually make progress; mental chatter tends to just be there, and often goes on tangents when you have better ways to spend your brain.

[Michael Chui]

I don't journal; instead, I simply write (and usually post) whatever comes to mind. This typically involves an essay, wherein I focus that "mental chatter" into a directed thesis and argument which also happens to be publicly available for critique.

[mlbr23]

I journal through my blogs and also offline on my private personal notebooks.

I find that it depends on what you intend to get out of it.

For me, I began this habit when I was 17 years old and have been doing it for 7 years now. I began with the intention of just writing my goals down and somehow see my goals through to fruition (most of them have).

Then it evolved into a process of thought, feedback and idea logging.

Over the months and years I find that more and more creative, original and inspired ideas just seem to flow through my mind non-stop, it's become somewhat a disadvantage to me rather than an advantage, because of idea and information overload. You can get crippled by indecision.

Here's where a mentor, a friend or even paper tools can help you tremendously. Have a mechanism or system to organise your ideas and file them accordingly. Work only on those that are immediately practical and most beneficial.

You may not want to eliminate mental chatter outright, because sometimes you need it to think through things constructively (depends on what is your dominant type of intelligence - is it verbal intelligence?).

The best thing to do is find your own system or way to organise your thoughts. The stimuli you are receiving on a constant basis from the environment (TV, home, workplace, school, neighbourhood, etc) also has an effect on the thoughts you will dominantly have.

[Ilya]

For a long time I couldn't bring myself to journalling. I envied the people around me who journaled. It seemed so cool. But at some point of stress, I just took out a piece of paper and vented everything. I wrote about 7 pages in one go. It relieved the stress, when I read through what I wrote, I could analyze the situation and get out of wrong pattern. So I added this technique to my toolbox.

I also started taking notes of everyday events. On one hand It allowed me to remember the details of the day, the events, the people. On the other hand it was all pretty mundane and reading it afterwards I considered it unimportant.

So over time my journal evolved into idea-capturing device and GTD capture device. As for impressions and capturing reality, I compose and write down haiku. They allow to make a snapshot of the situation in three short lines.