People that have experienced traumatic events or just everyday stress find that writing them out often helps. The best way to do this is by setting aside a time each day, about fifteen to twenty minutes to write. Try to keep the same time therefore it falls into your schedule as something that is routine, normally people will do things that are more routine than extra.
Go somewhere quiet where you are alone. Get comfortable, but don't lie down (often times lying down will trigger you to fall asleep). Write your feelings down, such as anger, frustration and grief. In this way your blank piece of paper is giving you a therapeutic way in which to vent your feeling that you have been bottling up. Feelings that often are unhealthy to vent in many ways because they can cause conflict or pain. Oftentimes you have bottled up feelings that you were unable to vent from a traumatic event such as a rape or domestic violence or even loss of a loved one through murder/kidnapping. Journal writing can help assist you to heal these often unexplored hurtful, terrifying, sad feelings that you have kept deep inside you for so long.
When my children were pre-teens I had them begin to journal their thoughts. I found this to be a way for them to vent their frustrations towards feeling "unjustly punished ect." in their eyes. Once I stumbled across my daughter's journal and found some disturbing things written in it about how she felt about me. However, she may have written them while frustrated she never acted them out. Thus, I never had a child that went to a public school and shot anyone or murdered her parents. I had a normal teenager who thought her Mother was "too strict" that wished Mom would die so she could live her life her way. A very natural wish for a teen when Mom wouldn't allow her to go to an "unchaperoned party." Of course had my daughter written detailed plans on how to murder me I would have been concerned then.
Writing about traumatic events or feelings also helps improve your health. It can improve your blood pressure, your heart rate and muscle tension. All due to the fact that it is a stress reducer. Therefore keeping a stress relieving journal is one way to improve your health and get something off your chest. Therefore, I believe this works no matter what the age of the person.
I'm sure everyone has a lot of things that bother them everyday that they could write about. The boss made you angry because you got passed over for promotion for the second time. Your son got arrested for a DUI. Your spouse invited his boss to dinner, forgot to tell you until he gets home from work, and the boss is due in one hour. The guy in the parking lot wasn't watching and backed into your car. Then there's more traumatic things like the loss of a parent or child in an accident or robbery. Some drunk drive crippled you for the rest of your life. Someone you know was raped or abused. Cancer has creeped into your family.
You feel devastated, invaded, full of hatred, want to lash out, want to scream, want to cry in desperation. Reach for that pen and tablet, write it out. Write it all out. Don't miss anything. Write your feelings down. Let the dam overflow from the pen unto the paper. That's right, write it all out. Don't hold back. I write when I am upset and life doesn't seem fair. I wrote when my Mother died. I wrote about the turmoil that I felt boiling inside me. It helped relieve my stress. I kept writing about how much I missed her being around. Eventually it helped ease the pain. It will help you too. The pain threshold lessens as the stress level decreases. That's why it's called a stress relieving journal.
de-stressing
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