Journaling To Better Mental Wellbeing This Christmas

It’s that time of year again, where routines and schedules go out the window as we prepare and endure the festive season. What often gets overlooked during the festive period is our wellbeing. So what can we do for our wellbeing this Christmas? Journaling, of course. Keep reading to find out more.

 

 

Why Should You Journal For Your Wellbeing This Christmas?

 

If you’re not already journaling, then why not? Have you not read my previous article on journaling, “Journaling: What Makes It The Self-Care Go To?“. There are many benefits of journaling. One of those benefits is that it’s a good way to de-stress and relax. It can also help process unpleasant thoughts, help rid yourself of any destructive thoughts, and help you problem solve. All of which can be useful while getting through this festive holiday.

 

 

Journal Prompts To Support Your Wellbeing This Christmas

 

Journal Prompt #1 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

With it coming up to the end of the year, we often look back at what has happened to us. This is especially true if you celebrate Thanks Giving. We even base our New Year’s resolutions on something negative based on our previous year. Why do we do this? Tradition mixed with a little bit of habit, I guess. But we don’t have to look back around this festive season.

 

Get your journal out and write about what you’re looking forward to in the new year. Having hope is always important to our wellbeing, especially our wellbeing at Christmas. This is because people can find Christmas and New Year’s difficult. Hope is one of the cornerstones of positive psychology. It works as an affective buffer for poor mental health. With hope, we can push ourselves to take more positive steps (Snyder, Lopez, Shorey, Rand, and Feldman, 2003), where hopelessness can keep us trapped. In short, hope is something that often helps us hold on when everything looks dark (Libero Magazine).

 

What are you looking forward to this new year?

 

Journal Prompt #2 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

Whatever your plans are for the festive season, you might benefit from writing about them. Are you planning to spend time with your family? Will you be going to the work Christmas party? Or are you keeping it low-key and just planning something cosy at home? No matter what you ended up planning, take some time to journal about it and write about your feelings.

 

What are your plans for the festive season?

How are your feelings about those plans?

 

Journal Prompt #3 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

The festive season can often get chaotic. One thing you can do to help manage the chaos, and thus improve your wellbeing this Christmas, is to write a to-do list. This is a really simple way to organise what you need to do, and therefore feel less stressed. You could also create a stop doing list, to help you avoid the things you don’t want to do this Christmas.

 

Write a to-do list.

Write a stop doing list.

 

 

Journal Prompt #4 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

Another positive psychology approach you could use is to tap into your gratitude this festive season. Feelings of gratitude can help restore your sense of happiness, which can sometimes slip during this period. You could utilise the gratitude from positive psychology by journaling about someone or some organisation that has helped you in some way.

 

Which person or organisation has helped you this year and how did they help?

 

Journal Prompt #5 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

We spend a lot of time over the festive season asking what the children in our lives what from Santa. We often forget to ask ourselves what we’d like. So let’s start doing that. It can be fun (but also a headache) to buy gifts for other people, so writing your own list is as much for you as it is for others.

 

My partner and provide each other with gift lists for Christmas and birthdays. We don’t have to stick to them, but it helps. The longer you’ve been together or the longer you’ve been alive when it comes to family, the more it helps simplify things, reducing a lot of stress. So help each other out with their wellbeing this Christmas, and make a list.

 

What’s on your wish list this Christmas?

 

Journal Prompt #6 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

Another simple journal idea to help with your wellbeing this Christmas could be to write about what you like about the festive season. You could turn this into a list if you have a lot of things to write about. Looking at the positives about this festive period can remind us what’s good about it, helping us to feel more hopeful.

 

Life Coach Directory suggests taking this journal prompt to the next level by writing a list of what you’re worrying about this festive season, and then comparing the two lists. Then write about any themes that pop up in both lists. You can also use this opportunity to explore the issues you have with your worries, such as excessive spending. Doing this will allow you to come up with solutions for your worries. In short, this will allow you to find out what’s important about this festive season.

 

Write a list about what’s good about the festive season.

Write a list about what’s worrying you about the festive season.

Compare the two lists, check your priorities and expectations, and come up with solutions to help you manage your wellbeing this Christmas.

 

 

Journal Prompt #7 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

Christmas is synonymous with tradition, but those traditions aren’t as old as you think. For example, goose used to be the main meat eaten at Christmas, but at some point that was changed for turkey, and turkey sucks. Because I hate turkey, but it was cheap, and we were poor growing up, my mum would buy a turkey for herself while I had southern fried chicken. A tradition I kept alive right into my 30s.

 

Traditions don’t work for everyone, and if something doesn’t work for you, ditch it. Take out your journal and write about what festive traditions you’d like to ignore and what new traditions you could do instead. Try to make these new traditions to celebrate the aspects of the festive season you enjoy, because that’ll help with your wellbeing this Christmas.

 

What festive traditions would you like to stop doing?

What new festive traditions would bring you the most joy this Christmas?

 

Journal Prompt #8 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

I’m hoping you all have at least one good festive holiday memory. If so, this is something you can write about in your journal so you can remember a happy time. Taking the time to remember this happy memory can also help us with creating similar experiences moving forward (Libero Magazine).

 

What’s your favourite festive holiday memory?

 

Journal Prompt #9 For Your Wellbeing This Christmas

As I said in my article, “Christmas: How To Manage The Festive Holidays“, don’t forget to practise self-care this festive season. To help you stick to this, write a list of self-care activities you can do to help maintain your wellbeing this Christmas. You might want to add such self-care ideas as watching a Christmas movie or drinking a hot chocolate with marshmallows. That way, you can tap into the Christmas spirit.

 

What five things are on your festive self-care list?

 

 

Summary

 

It’s easy to forget our wellbeing at Christmas, because although it’s a time to get together and celebrate, what makes all that happen can be quite stressful. This is where journaling comes in. Journaling is a really affective tool for managing our wellbeing, which is why you’ll see it feature a lot in any self-care advice. I’ve even talked about it in a few articles myself. The reason why journaling is talked about so much is because it’s easy to do while also being very effective. So why not try some of the journaling prompts I listed in this article and take control of your wellbeing this Christmas?

 

For more useful tips on how to cope with this festive holiday, check out my article “Christmas: How To Manage The Festive Holidays” by clicking here.

 

If you’re struggling for gift ideas this Christmas, then check out my gift ideas by clicking here. This article is full of wellbeing based Christmas gifts.

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with managing your wellbeing at Christmas in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, get push notifications for new articles by clicking the red bell icon in the bottom right corner.

 

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References

Snyder, C. R., Lopez, S. J., Shorey, H. S., Rand, K. L., & Feldman, D. B. (2003). Hope theory, measurements, and applications to school psychology. School Psychology Quarterly, 18(2), 122-139. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/be56/9ab6ba56c65e98b12d2afd19ee270c8a9fab.pdf.