Positive affect journaling (PAJ) is a simple journaling activity that is becoming increasingly popular, particular amongst people who have experienced the benefits of doing so as a way of creating that needed space and time to cultivate a “Satisfied” living.
PAJ is an emotion-focused self-regulation intervention that embraces positive psychology. It has been associated with positive well-being outcomes in a research study led by Dr Joshua M Smyth at Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University.
From the insights that I have gathered from the promising results of Dr Smyth's research study, it is rather clear that PAJ activities hold potential to lowering mental distress, increasing well-being. Essentially the PAJ activity is astonishingly simple and easily integrable into our daily life. In a nutshell and as the research as shown, it basically involves short activities of about 10 to 15 mins of journaling, three times a week.
Having tried PAJ myself and from my own journaling experience, positive effects to well-being could go beyond PAJ and may also become realizable when the journaling is paired with positive psychology enablers like self-affirmations, mindfulness meditation or other forms of meditation techniques. The paired activities were not part of the research study, but are personal experiences that I found useful and could in some way soon light up your wellness journey too. As we begin to involve ourselves and get acquainted with these positive psychology enabling activities, particularly journaling, we could soon reap the beneficial rewards .
If you have a mobile phone, mobile apps provide people with convenient access almost anytime and anywhere to journaling, collecting these ideas and thoughts as they appear in our minds before they evaporate too fast as they often do. The essential point is about creating an environment that makes it super convenient for us to journal our thoughts, look back at recent journaled entries, discover the glow of positive experiences on a daily or weekly basis, and the activities associated with these positive experiences. If there are negative experiences which there inadvertently may be, realise how the trajectories look like over time and consider engaging in some form of wellness enabling activities that would appeal to you as a counterbalance. If you like to explore ideas on wellness enabling activities, check our other blog post on self-affirmations and learn about the science backing it at this Wellness Chums link
Now, back to journaling, it might seem intuitive at first, but I have no doubt that it is actually quite challenging to sustain journaling as a goal towards “Satisfied” living practice. Most people may be busy professionals, parents of schooling children, care giver of elderly parents, community volunteers; juggling these roles or if not performing all of these roles on a daily or regular basis. If this sounds relatable, I am with you and fully understand, many of us have encountered these situations too.
The good news is that there are available resources we could easily use to begin our “Satisfied” living journey. I find these (mostly) free apps to be really useful resources that could help anyone interested to embark on their journaling journey or perhaps simply wishing to create some space and time in your daily life as you ascend towards “Satisfied” living.
That’s not all yet, here’s a cheery saved for you at the rim of this post, an inspiring quote that I totally enjoyed learning. I hope it would be just as blissful for you: A “Satisfied” life is better than a successful life because our success is measured by others, but our “Satisfaction” is measured by our own soul, mind, and heart.
Catch up with other blog post featured in Wellness Chums, check out this short read on Three Effective Tips for Mindfulness Meditation, Insights from Practitioner
If you like to support Wellness Chums or cheer on our on-going efforts in sharing evidence based positive psychology research that could enhance wellbeing for you and also the society at large, do subscribe to our email mailing list by scrolling to the bottom part of this link, subscribers also receive complimentary latest email notifications of new Wellness Chums blog drops.
Have a great week !
(Mostly) Free Journaling Apps for your “Satisfied” Living Journey
1. Diaro
2. Journey
3. Grid Diary
If you like to read a review of these journaling Apps, check out the reviews at this link to lifewire.com
Comments