Journaling as relaxation or catharsis

1canoe2 Paperie owner Beth Snyder showed off some of the journals for sale and talked about the benefits of writing during a recent webcast.
1canoe2 Paperie owner Beth Snyder showed off some of the journals for sale and talked about the benefits of writing during a recent webcast.

For those looking to pick up a pen, now might be the perfect time to take up journaling.

Not only are many people looking for ways to deal with the anxieties and stresses of the COVID-19 crisis, many people have found themselves with more time than they're accustomed to dealing with and a historical event unprecedented in recent history.

On Tuesday, the Callaway Chamber of Commerce set up a webinar by 1canoe2 Paperie owner Beth Snyder on the benefits and strategies of keeping a journal.

A couple of weeks ago, the chamber held a webinar on mental health - when journaling was suggested as a way to help maintain mental health, the idea for Tuesday's session was born.

As Snyder shared with viewers, there's no one way to journal or type of journal. Some prefer blank pages, other enjoy the order of lines and prompts.

Snyder prefers to use her notebooks to sketch.

"I'm not a regular journaler in the normal sense," Snyder said. "To be honest, most of the reason I've done journaling is because I love the notebooks."

While some might balk at the idea of anyone ever reading their musings, Snyder also described journaling as a possible group activity - the whole family could gather around and use journaling as a conversation starter and to allow children to share what went on during their day.

When her daughter was young, Snyder wrote a bit each day. One attendee commented she knew of someone who had done something similar, filling notebooks describing what was going on in the lives of each of her children.

Chamber employee and attendee Justis Smith asked for tips for making time to write in a busy schedule. Snyder suggested starting small.

"It can be as long or as short as you want," Snyder said.

Some write detailed accounts of their feelings; others write only a sentence at a time. Some copy weather reports, meal plans and news headlines.

In addition to using writing to chronicle life, Snyder also described journaling as a cathartic method to deal with hard times. A journaler might let their bad thoughts out and then never read it again.

Snyder recalled once asking her mother how she made it through a particularly stressful time in her life and was surprised to hear that journaling was her mother's answer. Snyder asked what had happened to the notebooks and was shocked again - her mother had burnt them.

"You can keep it forever or never read it again," Snyder said. "If I want to burn it, I can."