When we remember something extraordinary that makes us feel grateful for those around us afterward, we are often led on a trip abundant with uplifting ideas and pleasant energy. Journaling can be healing for many people. It inspires you to go deeply into an emotional investigation, transforming emotions into self-expression that fosters learning and development. This article will discuss journaling and how it helps increase productivity and improve mental health. We will also discuss the challenges of keeping a manual journal and the best journaling apps to summarize your day.
What is Journaling?
Writing down your innermost thoughts and feelings on a piece of paper or any software is known as the act of journaling. Journaling allows you to express your most genuine emotions and deepest thoughts. Through journaling, anyone can strengthen their emotional reflexes. You can deal with life’s challenges and uncertainties by journaling, which is a cerebral, emotional, and spiritual activity. Journaling aids in the discovery of your sense of purpose and meaning in life. It also helps you discover your connection to a higher force by allowing you to recognize your negative ideas and beliefs and cultivate positive, healing ones in their place. Writing in a journal can help you manage your stress and anxiety. It also aids in depression management and aids in setting priorities for your issues. Tracking your difficulties regularly will help you identify their causes, as well as how to become aware of them and find better solutions. Additionally, it simplifies your ideas and feelings, aids in self-awareness, and helps you recognize harmful thoughts and behaviors. Writing in a journal helps us gain insight into our everyday experiences.
How does journaling help?
The research was conducted by scientists where people with diverse mental illnesses and anxiety had to write online for 15 minutes three days a week for 12 weeks. Those people reported feeling better about themselves and exhibited fewer depressive symptoms. The 12 weeks of journaling saw a continuous improvement in their mental health. Journalising also alleviates brooding. The timing of writing about an emotional occurrence is essential since it might help you stop thinking and worrying about it endlessly. This allows people to pay more attention to their work and increases productivity. It’s possible that journaling affects one’s physical health. According to research conducted on 49 persons in New Zealand, those who spent 20 minutes writing about their emotions related to traumatic situations recovered more quickly after a biopsy than those who wrote about their usual activities. Similarly, sick days among college students were lower among those who wrote about stressful occurrences as opposed to those who wrote about uninteresting subjects like their rooms. There were fewer physical symptoms and cancer-related doctor visits for breast cancer patients who wrote favorably or expressively about their experience with the illness.
Challenges in manual journal
It is quite possible that you would feel like writing in your journal at any time of the day. It is not always possible to carry your journaling diary or pen every place. Furthermore, writing in your diary in places unsuitable for using pen and paper would be tough. Another disadvantage of pen and paper journals is that you cannot add photos, videos, or audio clippings to your journals. Since carrying a manual journal might be challenging for most people, the best alternative to these pen and paper journals is journaling apps. Journaling apps come with many benefits and features. Mentioned below are the best journaling apps which you can use to summarize your day.
Reflectly
One of the best journaling apps that helps users deal with evil thoughts, amp up their positivity, and learn about the science of wellness is Reflectly. It uses artificial intelligence to assist users in organizing and considering their daily concerns and ideas. Reflectly contains an intelligent questioning system powered by AI that aids in tracking user progress and providing insights. It includes more than 1000 inspirational quotes and provides these words as a widget for the home screen. Reflectly also offers its readers daily challenges, journaling prompts, and inspirational information. It is available on both the Play store and App store. It works on: Android iOS
Diaro App
Diaro is another journaling app that is available in more than 30 languages. It is used by more than 3 million users worldwide. It is based on three words which are simple, effective, and personal. This app helps its users keep their life moments and ideas with them. Whether a little remark or a lengthy diary entry, Diaro’s user-friendly layout makes it easy for users to arrange everything. Users can easily download the Diaro app from the Play store and App store. Users can search for data based on a keyword, date, tags, folder, or even location. Users can also effortlessly sync their Diaro app on their smartphone with Diaro Online using any web browser by utilizing Dropbox. It works on: Android iOS
Daylio App
Daylio is a journaling app that includes a self-care bullet journal with objectives, a mood diary, and a happiness tracker. Because it provides the highest level of privacy and is trusted by more than 10 million users, it is one of the Google editor’s choice applications. On Daylio, users may enter their daily activities and emotions in only two taps. Data is crunched by the Daylio app, which displays it in figures, charts, and correlations. It uses a massive collection of lovely symbols for customized tasks, and users may mix and combine amusing emojis to express whatever mood they like. Users can look through intriguing quarterly or annual data derived from their records. Users may choose their color schemes, enabling dark mode to enjoy the nights. This app is available on both the Google Play store and the App store. It works on: Android iOS
Journey App
The Journey is one of the best journaling apps for beginners who do not know how to journal. They have worked with several life coaches to provide the user with a wide range of self-care subjects, covering anything from learning to be optimistic to body positivity and self-love. It monitors both the user’s physical and emotional health. Users may connect Google Fit and Apple Health to track their calorie burn and step count. Using the mood chart, you may also identify your patterns and triggers. You get the option of tracking your moods for up to a year. Users can download the app from the Play store and App store. It works on: Android iOS
Longwalks app
The Longwalks app is a journaling app that facilitates communication with people across the globe based on their responses to specific questions. You can connect with colleagues, discover love, and create friends depending on what matters most to you. To get to the good stuff and to bring out each person’s unique, exceptional, and outstanding characteristics, Longwalks offers the right questions. Their inquiries are based on focus groups, validated research, analytics, and user assistance. It is available on both the Play store and App store. It works on: Android iOS
Penzu App
Penzu is the best journaling app for users who want a tool to log their daily feelings and activities in a reflective notebook, chart milestones in a pregnancy or diet diary, or even log their dreams in a dream journal. The app provides you with all the resources you want so that you can concentrate on the thoughts you wish to retain rather than the act of writing. It is available on both the Play store and App store. It uses military-grade encryption and double password security to protect user journals, allowing users to rest easy knowing that their journals are safe in the Penzu Vault. It works on: Android iOS
Thinky App
The Thinky app is only available for iPhones. It is a stunningly detailed and safe-free diary that allows you to say hello to seamless journaling. You can use Thinky’s writing prompts if you are unsure of what you want to write. It will aid users in concentrating on their health and dispel their anxiety about the blank page. Thinky’s straightforward user interface (UI) makes it easy to finish your posts quickly, making it ideal for journaling on the go. You may examine how your mood changes over time by using Thinky’s visual mood graph. You can quickly search your entries to see if you can identify any trends in your thinking. Additionally, Thinky offers a Dark Mode that is ideal for late-night journaling. Thinky also has a Face ID lock to keep users’ journals private. You can download it from App Store. It works on: iOS
Momento App
Momento is another journaling app that can only work on iPhones. It creates a stunning journal that seamlessly recounts your life narrative and keeps you up to date by secretly gathering your daily actions, images, and videos from the social networks, applications, and gadgets you use daily. Momento was a Starbucks’ Pick of the Week selection in 2016 and 2011 and an Editors’ Choice on Apple in November 2015. It was also the 2011 Runner-Up for Apple’s iPhone App of the Year in December. With a straightforward and user-friendly design, you may easily record your moments in writing. To organize and explore your memories on Momento, you can add persons, places, and categories to moments. Users can download the app from the App store. It works on: iOS
ZenJournal App
ZenJournal is the quickest and easiest journal, where everything can be done with only two taps. Everything in this app occurs on the timeline, user logs, and hashtags, and there is a single interface for all searches. You only need to launch the app to begin reading, searching, reflecting, and logging. Additionally, users may double-tap their logs to activate “Discreet Mode,” which obfuscates their logs into fuzzy chunks. On Zenjournal, users may also use TouchID or FaceID to lock their records. Users of Zenjournals may access their logs to view a contribution graph over the previous 105 days. Users can download this app from both the Play store and App store. Additionally, Apple listed Zenjournal as one of their “New Apps We Love” in 2019 and “5 Apps to Start Your Week” in 2020. It works on: Android iOS
Day One App
The Day One app is one of the best journaling apps, which is entirely free to use. It boasts a stunning, award-winning design with a layout that offers everything users could ever need, allowing them to concentrate on their writing. Users can easily relive the past event using the Day One app’s “Use On This Day” feature. It can assist people in traveling across time without needing a time machine. You can also include images, videos, drawings, or audio recordings to make your journal entries more engaging. The Day One app is available on the Play store and App store. Finally, Day One offers you the option to export your data at any moment while protecting your journals with biometric security, end-to-end encryption, and automated backups. It works on: Android iOS
Grid Diary App
The most straightforward approach to begin keeping a journal is with Grid Diary. It offers a novel method of diary writing. It combines compelling diary and planner templates with introspective prompts to assist you in concentrating on the areas of life you wish to monitor and excel in all respects. Grid Diary offers thought-provoking questions to assist you in reflecting on your days and discovering fascinating insights about yourself so that you won’t have to face writer’s block any day. Grid Diary allows you to create your notebook and planner system by combining weekly, monthly, and annual diaries. The app is available on both the Play store and App store. It works on: Android iOS
Happyfeed App
The Happyfeed journaling app encourages users to keep a gratitude notebook where they may think about the beautiful things in their lives. You may join a group to share your joy with others or establish a private diary packed with good experiences. Every user’s journal is safely and securely synced online across all devices through Happyfeed. Users can find it on Google Play Store and the App Store. Users can upload photographs to their memories to give them additional context. At the end of the month, users can use Happyfeed’s in-app functionality to create a photo grid. It works on: Android iOS
Reflection.app
The Reflection.app is specially created to make writing and routine reflection available to everyone. With the app, you may start a fruitful reflection practice with a notebook that encourages thankfulness, allows for acceptance and growth, and aids in finding clarity. The structure used by the app serves as a roadmap for users’ journaling and reflection. It makes learning from the past straightforward, easy, and pleasant and is intended to assist users in developing journaling habits. Users can easily download this app from the Play store, App store (iOS & macOS), and via their web app. It works on: Android iOS
Alan Mind App
Alan Mind offers the advantages of writing practice as simple and approachable, with interactive tutorials designed to boost self-assurance, appreciation, and focus or to deal with worry, loneliness, and goal-setting. Additionally, all information entered into Alan Mind is kept private for the user’s eyes only. All entries are automatically encrypted for optimal security, and users can establish their encryption key. Alan Mind also does not sell user data or run ads. You can find this app on both the Play store and App store. It works on: Android iOS
Conclusion
By the time you’ve finished reading this, you must be aware of the benefits of journaling for expressing yourself, decompressing, and preserving a positive work-life balance. In addition to other techniques, keeping a diary is an excellent approach to practicing mindfulness and self-awareness. You can keep an eye on how you’re developing and changing. Journaling is a process that aids in a person’s personal development and advancement, not merely a pastime. So, now is your time to install the best journaling app on your device and start with this habit.
