To many, the idea of handwriting for fun might seem antiquated. After all, we do everything on our computers. Now, with tablets and smartphones, who would still carry around a journal? After all, a journal doesn’t let you backspace and make edits so smoothly and quickly. However, research has shown that journaling has a number of health benefits. The Huffington Post takes a look at this in a recent article titled “Wish Upon a Page: 4 Ways Journaling Can Help You Achieve the Ideal Life.”

Toneka Etienne of the Huffington Post writes, “Your mind is constantly bogged down with thoughts, the replaying of recent events (much of which your mind can remember incorrectly as time goes on) and past experiences. Clear your mind by writing down your thoughts, feelings and plan of action. When you give yourself time for reflection, you can make sense of them in a strategic way. Best of all? allow yourself the opportunity to start controlling your thoughts, instead of your thoughts controlling you… Every day, you're bombarded with a dozen or more decisions that you have to make, urgently. Have you ever started to doubt your decision making at some point? Journaling your feelings can bring about a method to your madness. Once you start to get those potential decisions down on paper, the right answer can become clear. Also, good decisions that were in your head may start to look like not-so-good decisions once you actually get them down on paper. Either way, journaling can allow you to learn to listen to your 'gut' instincts, and hone in on your inner voice, which is your greatest tool for decision making.”

Bustle joins the conversation with a recent article titled “7 Health Benefits Of Writing And Journaling, From Treating Asthma To Depression.” JR Thorpe of Bustle writes, “A major study in 2005 focusing on recovery from emotional trauma found that writing about traumatic feelings and experiences produced what the study called ‘significantly better physical and psychological outcomes’ for the people who did the writing. The key? Writing about what really mattered. A journal about the weather wasn't going to do the same kind of emotional and physical healing. The results were pretty stunning, even if the increments were small. People who wrote at length and regularly about how they were feeling and their traumatic memories spent fewer days in hospital, had a stronger immune system, better liver function, better mood, and were psychologically stronger overall — with better grades. These were young people who were likely quite resilient, but it's significant nonetheless. There's an addendum to this: Suffering from serious PTSD? Writing about the incident or incidents themselves is probably not going to do a lot of good unless it's under clinical supervision and on the advice of a specialist in exposure therapy.”

Looking for a quality journal? Try the Sacred Lotus Flower Embossed Leather Journal from Armory Replicas.

The handcrafted leather journal is embossed with several types of flowers on the front and back cover. You can use crayon, pencil, pen, ink, and charcoal on this non-rag paper. Our Sacred Lotus Embossed Leather Journal is great to use as a sketchbook or just for writing your thoughts down. Just open your mind and let the magic flow.

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