And by started, I mean I started writing in one last night. But I've actually had one for about two years now, and I was always too nervous to write in it. My mom got it for me as a Christmas gift two ago. It has a nice, black faux-leather cover, with lined paper, and one of those built-in bookmarks. It's really nice, and because of that, I didn't want to waste it with random thoughts. I wanted to use it for something that made sense to have a nice journal for.

I tried writing lyrics in it, but it felt like a waste too. I may like the lyrics as I am writing them, but I most likely won't down the line, and thus wasted the pages anyway. I know that is some seriously skewed logic. The whole point of a journal is to do just that; fill it with random, meaningless thoughts. Or at the least, write whatever you want, since it's your journal after all.

But after my last article, "The Problem With Over Thinking" it should be clear that I stress and let anxiety get the best of me.

Impractical Jokersi.vimeocdn.com

Then a few days ago, I was watching "Impractical Jokers." They started doing "inside the jokes," where a post-it note pops on the screen and tells the viewer inside facts about the jokes and pranks and stunts. During one challenge, Q was forced to read from his journal. And the post-it note said how writing in a journal is used as a therapeutic means.

Now, this obviously isn't anything new. But the fact stayed with me because it is really the only thing I haven't done to try and alleviate my stress, over-thinking, and anxiety. So I took my journal from two years ago and wrote my first entry yesterday.

Well, "Impractical Jokers" helped push that, but it was also because of something at my new job. The Historic Society found journals from one of the founding families of the town I work in and published them. I thought it would be nice to see how I over cam struggles, or where my thoughts were years from now. It could be interesting to show my children one day. I'm not sure, but a weird sense of future-nostalgia kicked in as well.

With those two reasons coupled together, I decided to start writing in my journal.

Only two days in, and I'm glad I started. I haven't written anything extraordinary or anything like that (nothing groundbreaking in curing my over-thinking). But putting it down on the page acts similarly to telling someone. Only, when you talk to someone, a conversation ensues. And so if I were talking with someone, the conversation would circle and circle to new points that ultimately repeat the same concerns.

But writing it on the paper, the conversation has nowhere to go, unless I choose to ramble. So the conversation ends, as the thoughts conclude on the paper, and the stress can be exercised.

So I wrote today, about something that pissed me off. And while the thing that annoyed me continued to linger in the back of my head throughout the day, it was subtly there. Normally, something would continue to eat at me, and I'd have that obnoxious feeling of a pit form in my chest.

Today, however, it was a glimmering thought that would fade in and out very infrequently. Maybe it's only a coincidence, that the day I wrote in my journal the stress was subsiding. It could have been a day that that was my mood anyway, and the writing did nothing to help.

But I don't think that's the case. Because I wrote in it last night and it felt relaxing. I don't feel like something is eating at me. It's like the adage "out of sight, out of mind." When it's in my head, I keep mulling over it. Even after I talk about it, it still seems to linger. But physically putting the words down, and then closing the book, seems to put a barrier up.

I know it's soon to jump to that conclusion, but that's the idea behind writing in a journal for therapeutic needs. And even though I only wrote a little, I can see how that is true.

Journal c1.staticflickr.com

I want to stick with it; I mentioned the founding family journal. The journals span over 20 years. Imagine being able to look back on that one day. Again, I know this isn't some new thing that I've stumbled upon that no one else knows about. I know writing in a journal and being able to relieve stress and look back on your thoughts is not news. I know I'm late to the party. But better late than never.