Journaling during your doctorate can have a host of benefits (for self-knowledge, mental and physical health). However, not everyone will benefit to the same degree, and different kinds of journaling have different advantages… if done correctly over a sustained period of time. In this post, I will go over different research-backed journaling exercises and tips to make your journaling most effective.

Do you ever get the feeling, at the end of the day, that you have achieved nothing? or that days and weeks pass by, indistinguishable from one another, time slipping away like water between your fingers? Is your mind an unfocused maelstrom of swirling thoughts, ruminating again and again about the same worrying (or plain silly) things? Journaling has been proposed (both by ancient philosophers and modern researchers) as having many benefits, from dealing with stress and trauma, to just understanding ourselves a little better. But, can journaling be useful for us in facing the challenges of a PhD? In this post, I will take a look at the research on different kinds of journaling and what are their effects for mental and physical health.