A couple of weeks ago, ULT released a post on ‘mindful journaling’ aimed at using a journal in its first instance by entertaining a series of activities. This post features ideas for how you might use your journal to track, manage, and improve your health across the board.

Self care is difficult for the person who doesn’t self love. By taking the steps to complete these activities, the do-er activates the first stages of developing both.

Physical and emotional/mental health are entwined like perfect lovers. One follows the other for better or worse and so it’s important to take actions which ensure a positive perpetuation.

Mood monitoring! Each night take a few seconds to colour in or code the spaces of a calendar (draw your own if you wish). If your mood dips and you can see it, you will know when to seek comfort or support. More elaborate keys and codes include having high vs low anxiety days, feeling positive or negative, goals completed/some goals completed/no goals completed to reflect sense of achievement, etc.

There are some necessary activities to do to improve mental wellbeing and physical health. These include typical health habits and physical needs. The following activities are to ensure consistent attempts to meet your own needs. By taking the recordings each day, you are revisiting your intentions and should see each day as a new opportunity to smash those goals.

Sleep records. There are apps you can download which record how much sleep you get each night and the depth and quality of sleep. Noting down how many hours of sleep you get each night can help you to create healthier patterns. Lacking sleep is detrimental to health and wellbeing, and sleeping for too long can be detrimental to energy levels too.

Exercise log with rewards! Set a plan to exercise a certain number of times a month. Everytime that you do it, colour in or tick off a space. In months when you complete the number of planned workouts, allow yourself a reward of $€£ at a reasonable amount. Save it and spend it on yourself.

Water log! Not all of us manage to drink the required daily amount of H2O for our bodies to function optimally. By keeping a water intake log you can increase awareness of when you need to drink and also witness the impact drinking more water has on other logs such as your mood and exercise logs.

Food diary or menu planning can help you to keep track of what you eat and to make adjustments to suit your needs. It can also help to reduce the amount of money you spend while picking up your groceries. Trying out a new diet? Use your journal to record changes in weight and what works better for you by way of dietary requirements.

Medication reviews for yourself and your doctor can show your doctor how medications are affecting you over time. You can record symptoms on the day they happen to avoid forgetting what you need to say when your appointment comes.

Needless to say, there are hundreds of activities you might like to do in your journal but these few listed above are likely to kick start a more healthy, basic lifestyle routine if taken seriously.

Happy healing!