Journaling 101

Guided journaling is a facilitated approach to journaling, which helps you to focus on a specific topic or theme through prompts—writing down your thoughts and experiences—which improves mindfulness and can ease the introduction to the practice of journaling. Journaling is a simple tool that you can use anytime to help you process emotions, reduce worry, improve productivity, and increase gratitude and self-compassion through reflective thinking. Read on to learn more about why Journaling is one of the most popular features inside (held). 

How it Works

Guided journaling uses prompts to guide the flow of writing in one’s journal. Often prompts will encourage deeper thinking as it brings up ideas or questions that may not have otherwise been considered; it can involve different techniques, such as visualization or realization. Simply writing down your thoughts and feelings in guided or individual journalling can help you understand them more clearly. Many use journaling to track their emotions, reflect on dreams, boost self-esteem, and build a gratitude practice. Journaling allows you to process and work through your experiences and emotions, and is a great self-care practice to incorporate into a daily self-care routine. 

The Evidence

Journaling helps manage anxiety, reduce stress and cope with depression by helping us to better understand and control emotions, recognize triggers and develop positive self-talk. Writing in a journal creates a practice of mindfulness, which can help develop emotional awareness by providing a way to approach and respond to emotions. 

For those who have experienced traumatic events, journaling has been found to result in improvements in physical and psychological health; it has also been found to aid in the process of addiction recovery. 

“Through my journaling practice I allow myself to look within.” –real WellSet user

The Benefits

Try a guided journaling session if you’re experiencing:

• Anxiety 
• Stress 
• Depression  
• PTSD or trauma 
• Addiction 
• Low self-esteem 
• Physical pain or ailments 
• Blockages with individual journaling

What Experts Say

"Journaling can be a helpful tool to help you learn more about yourself, release stress and heal trauma. My passion is to help people heal their heart. To look at the fears and pains we experience as an opportunity to grow and empower ourselves." –Elizabeth Winkler


Try using the journalling tool inside (held) app the next time  you're feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, or need a boost of self-care.