Bullet journaling is taking the journaling community by storm. It’s intricate system of symbols and framework provide a journaling individual with the necessary information they need for future planning, keeping information in a steady place, and providing that outlet for processing events in your or someone else’s life. My grandmother recently started bullet journaling to keep track of the progress or lack thereof with my grandfather’s cancer. In other words, bullet journaling is a genius way to keep information together and easy to use.
Okay, so maybe you’ve been all over the bullet journal train. However, what we really want to offer for you is a way to use bullet journaling for your mental health.
Keep track
Keeping track of my emotions has become essential for me. Over the course of this year, I have had several sporadic weeks when I was feeling exhausted, irritable, and an inability to concentrate. Then a week or two later I was feeling much better and easily made up for all of the work and activities I had missed when I could barely get up in the morning.
I have several family members with bipolar disorder and I was worried I was experiencing that fate. However, I decided to write down in my calendar when I was feeling a certain way and when that feeling stopped. I compared that to other events during my month. I noticed that I was feeling this way during a specific time of my women’s cycle. A trip to the doctor and lo and behold, I didn’t have bipolar disorder, but rather premenstrual dysphoric disorder!* The journaling totally changed the game for me! Now I use the journaling for my next point of why you want to use bullet journaling for your mental health.
Inform
Using a bullet journal for your mental health is a great way to inform yourself ahead of time of potentially stressful situations. For example, if you use a monthly journal for your appointments, events, and upcoming deadlines, you can use that information to make sure you plan for your own self-care for the month. (e.g. I need to be vigilant in going to bed early during weeks that I have many simultaneous deadlines) Or if you feel like you have specific symptoms coming on, you can look at your calendar and past bullet journals to discover specific regular events that might be a trigger for you.
Evaluate
After a few months, you will find that looking over your journaling will help you assess your mental health. If you write down your feelings and a few details about your day every day, and then look at it holistically, you might find helpful patterns in your emotions. If you are seeing a counselor, doctor, or psychiatrist, this might also be particularly useful information to be able to bring to their attention.
Set Goals
Because bullet journaling is like a calendar and a journal got together had a perfect baby, you get the best of both worlds! You get to set your plans and ideas into an organized spreadsheet and write down your goals in a spot that you will be looking at EVERY DAY! Honestly, it’s like a life-hack in the goal setting arena.
Check out our article on goal setting the SMART way!
In the upcoming weeks, we will be blogging about the different ways to use a bullet journal to assist you in your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. Because we follow Ayurvedic principles, we value balance and a wholesome approach to self-care. We invite you on our journey to use bullet journaling to your advantage, and soon we will be offering a printable wellness bullet journal just for you to use!
Will you do us a favor? If you’ve used a bullet journal before, will you tell us what worked well for you?
*Severe depression and anxiety during a specific part of a woman’s hormonal cycle. Difficult when I was unsure about when it would happen and why, but totally and completely manageable now that I was able to pinpoint the problem!
