Diary

Statue of Leonardo da Vinci in Tuscany, Italy.

Leonardo da Vinci practiced journaling.

A diary is a written and/or audiovisual memorabilic record with entries organized by date. The process of maintaining a diary is referred to as journaling. According to Sarah Bence, OTR/L, "Journaling as a therapeutic activity is different than keeping a diary."

Benefits of journaling

• It improves self-distancing and self-awareness. Self-distancing is one's ability to reflect on past events/emotions as an objective observer. This improves one's ability to break away from a nonstop cycle of obsessive thinking and brooding.

• Improves one's awareness, perception and understanding of the relevance of events (Creating coherent narratives of what has happened, etc.).

• It encourages goal setting and the achievement of goals. Journaling helps one categorize things one writes in a journal as important (Important enough to write down). This helps also assist a person to be more receptive to opportunities that cause goal fulfillment. In addition, it reinforces one's awareness of goal tracking in terms of the degree that one accomplishes goals.

• It helps manage stress, anxiety, and depression and the physical illness that they may cause. Studies indicates that time spent journaling about one's deepest thoughts and feelings reduces the number of sick days that people take off work (Sohal, Singh, Dhillon & Gill, 2022).

• Gratitude journaling helps increase positive thinking by helping people focus more on the positive aspects of life via capturing situations, events, and interactions for which they are grateful.

Famous journalers

Famous journalers include: Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, George Sand, Virginia Woolf, John D. Rockefeller, Anne Frank, Louisa May Alcott, Bob Dylan, Dorothy Day, George Patton, Buckminster Fuller and Marcus Aurelius.