80 Journal Prompts For Mental Health +Free Printable
These journal prompts for mental health are sure to help you. Journaling is well known to help with mental health.
It’s a common tool suggested by therapists and advocates alike to help people cope better with depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems.
But I don’t know about you, when I open a notebook and stare at a blank page the words don’t just “flow”.
My emotions don’t come pouring out into neat little sentences that accurately describe how I’m feeling.
Nope.
Instead, I just get blank page overwhelm and my feelings continue to make a mess in my head.
But then I found a solution, and it’s a pretty darn good one if I do say so myself.
Journal prompts for mental health.
I’m sure you’ve heard of journaling prompts before, but basically, they’re questions or exercises to get your journaling started. No more blank page overwhelm and a heck more insight into what’s going on inside your head.
They work. Shockingly well. So today I’m going to share with you some of my favorite journaling prompts for mental health.
Ready? Let’s get started!
Journal Prompts For Mental Health +Free Printable
Feeling stuck in a negative mental health trap? Looking for journal prompts to improve your mental health?
If you’ve ever struggled with stress, anxiety, or any other mental health issue before, you’ve probably developed a coping mechanism, something that helps you survive the storm.
But what about if you need something more to help with your mental health and wellness journey?
This is where journal prompts come into place. The action of putting your thoughts into a piece of paper relaxes you deeply.
Prompts are the best way to self-discovery too.
Before we get started, I highly recommend you do a massive feelings dumb. It will clear up your mind from racing thoughts.
Download my free daily self-care printable:
Open a page in your journal and write down EVERYTHING you are feeling right now.
Sometimes we get so overwhelmed by so many different things that we don’t know the exact thing that causes all this stress and overthinking.
By laying everything out and writing them down on paper, you realize what’s causing you to feel this way, and then you can work towards a fix.
Now that you’ve gained a bit of mental clarity, here are 60 journal prompts to improve your mental health:
50+ Mental Health Journal Prompts
- Are you feeling stressed?
- What’s causing me stress and anxiety right now?
- How can I grow from this? What can I learn from what is happening right now?
- Write down the 5 things that make you extremely happy in life. Why do they make you feel this way?
- Describe the perfect, ideal day, in detail. From the moment you wake up till the moment you go to bed.
- What brings you peace? What makes you feel calm and relaxed? Why? (by writing this you’ll automatically feel relaxed and calm).
- What has had a positive or negative effect on your mental health lately? (Write down 2 columns, start from the negative and finish with the positive ones).
- What is your favorite memory of your life? Something that you’ve experienced and you loved it, and want to experience it again.
- List five people you admire and write about why. (It can be friends, celebrities, family members, influencers, entrepreneurs, or whoever you admire the most).
- What are the 20 things you’re grateful for in life? (Write them down, and look back for them when you’re feeling down.)
- How has Social Media been making you feel? Is it good or bad about myself?
- Write 5 things you’re proud of accomplishing the last week. (small and even big wins).
- Describe the best compliment someone has ever made you. How did it make you feel?
- Name a challenge you’ve overcome and how it helped you to grow.
- What do you fear about the most? And why?
- What characteristics and qualities you love about yourself the most?
- List 3 things that you can do to improve your overall mental health.
- If you had 1 year left to live, how’d you spend it? (Most times, we worry about our future or the past way too much, and we ignore the present moment. This will help you be more mindful throughout the day).
- How different you were 5 years ago? How’d you change? How’d your life change?
- What are the top 3 things that I’m looking forward to this week?
- Write down a goal you want to start working towards.
- When was the last time you cried? And why?
- What activities do you think would make you feel better? Make sure to schedule them for this coming week/month.
- What is the one thing that if you do it every day you’d feel satisfied and accomplished?
- A friend comes to you asking for help with his anxiety. How would you help him/her?
- How do you know when you’re feeling anxious? Which are your signs?
- What do you do to deal with anxiety and stress? Are your coping mechanisms working?
- Think about what triggers your stress, emotions, poor eating habits.
- What are 5 things that have happened to you that were difficult, but you are now grateful for the experience?
- Write about the top 3 childhood memories that have stuck with you.
- List the 10 things that made you smile today.
- List the 3 things that made you anxious today.
- Write down 3 things that trigger you. How do you cope with anger?
- Do you think negatively about yourself?
- Do you believe in yourself? Are you capable of achieving anything you want in life?
- What are the 5 things that are stressing you out, that you have NO control over?
- What is one thing you can add to your morning/evening routine to help you with your anxiety?
- Write a list for your future self about the things to do when you’re having a bad day/or when you’re in a bad mood. (Use this list when you’re feeling down).
- What advice would you give to someone going through a hard time?
- What has your anxiety taught you about yourself?
- What or who motivates you the most?
- Are your friends supportive or toxic?
- Write 2 songs that hit home for you. How and why do you relate to these songs? How do you feel when you’re hearing them?
- Write down your favorite artist or actor. Someone who has helped you go through the downs of life. Write how grateful and appreciative you are about their art/work.
- Which person had the most positive impact on you? Let them know.
- What types of thoughts keep you up at night?
- What healthy habits can you add to your daily routine?
- When you open up your eyes in the morning, what are your first thoughts?
- What makes you feel safe and calm when you’re anxious?
- What do you need the most right now?
Bonus 30 More Journal Prompts For When You’re Feeling Low or Depressed
51 – Describe what depression has taught you that you otherwise would not have learned.
52- Write down exactly what’s going on in your head right now, then write about how you would like things to feel and be in your head.
53 – Imagine your best friend was going through depression right now, what would you say to her and what would your expectations be of her. Do you treat yourself in the same way?
54 – What is a trigger for your depression? Explain why you think this affects you so much and whether there is anything you can do stop it having such a major effect.
55 – Choose one thing to forgive yourself for and write a letter of forgiveness to yourself about it.
Journaling Prompts For When You’re Feeling Anxious
56 – What is a trigger for your anxiety? Explain why you think this affects you so much and whether there is anything you can do stop it having such a major effect.
57 – Describe a situation from the past when you were very anxious. Was whatever you were anxious about as bad as your anxiety made it out to be? Was there anything you could have done to reduce your anxiety?
58 – Feeling anxious about something right now? Describe the feeling and give it a rating out of ten. Do you think the amount you are anxious is proportionate to the task or event being worried about?
59 – List out everything you are worrying about right now. Now go through the list and write how you can make each item easier, less scary and less anxiety-producing.
60 – Write about a time you achieved something despite being very anxious about it. How did you deal with your anxiety and still make that achievement?
Journaling Prompts For Getting In The Flow
61 – Today’s Top Three: Write about the three emotions you felt most strongly today. What triggered them?
62 – Gratitude Reflection: List five things you are grateful for right now and explain why.
63 – Stress Release: Describe the main source of your stress today and brainstorm three ways to reduce it.
64 – Positive Affirmations: Write down five positive affirmations about yourself. Focus on your strengths and qualities.
65 – Overcoming Challenges: Reflect on a recent challenge and how you dealt with it. What did you learn from this experience?
66 – Future Self: Imagine your life five years from now. What do you hope to have achieved?
67 – Letter to Past Self: Write a letter to your younger self. What advice or comfort would you offer?
68 – Emotional Deep Dive: Pick one emotion you’ve been avoiding and explore it in detail. Why do you feel this way?
69 – Self-Care Strategies: List five self-care activities you enjoy. How do these activities impact your mood and mental health?
70 – Dream Analysis: Describe a recent dream and explore its possible meanings or connections to your waking life.
71 – Overcoming Negative Thoughts: Identify a negative thought you’ve had and reframe it into a positive or neutral one.
72 – Inspiring Quotes: Find a quote that resonates with you today and reflect on why it speaks to you.
73 – Mindfulness Moments: Describe a moment today when you were fully present. What were you doing? How did it feel?
74 – Relationship Reflections: Think about a significant relationship in your life. What have you learned from this person?
75 – Goal Setting: Set a small, achievable goal for the week. Why is this goal important to you?
76 – Favorite Memory: Write about your favorite memory. Why does this memory stand out to you?
77 – Forgiveness: Is there someone (including yourself) you need to forgive? Write about your feelings and the process of forgiveness.
78 – Daily Wins: No matter how small, list three ‘wins’ you had today.
79 – Creative Outlets: What are your creative outlets? How do they help you express and understand your emotions?
80 – Personal Growth: Reflect on the ways you’ve grown over the past year. What changes are you most proud of?
Mental Health Benefits of Journaling
To make these journal prompts for mental health work, you need to understand why it matters. So, I thought it would make sense to go over why you and I should be journaling for our mental health.
I know journaling can feel like a bit of a chore if you’re not a natural writer, but once you understand how helpful it can be suddenly it seems much more worth the effort.
Journaling can help by…
Reducing anxiety, depression, and stress
By writing down these intense feelings you are getting them out of your head and onto paper.
This clears some space in your head for other, nicer thoughts and also the act of writing stops you falling into the whirlwind of rumination and overthinking which, let’s be honest, only makes everything worse.
Journalling helps you understand your feelings
When everything in your head feels like a sad, angry jumbled-up mess it can be really difficult to understand what you’re feeling and what triggered these feelings in the first place.
Journaling can help you sift through all these thoughts and turn them into something you can actually understand and learn from.
You’ll learn more about yourself and why certain things affect you
When you go to the doctors the first thing they do is diagnose you. I mean it would be a bit silly if you walked in and they first tried to treat you without knowing what’s wrong…
Well, journaling can help you figure out why something affected you so much, and once you know the what’s and whys it’s a lot easier to figure out an action plan for the future to keep you feeling happy!
Journalling helps you Improve your relationships with others
Your relationship with others can have a huge impact on your mental health, and journaling really can help to improve these relationships.
Say you’re annoyed at your friend for something, naturally, we might be a bit off with them, snappy or even have a full-on go at them.
But here is the thing, sometimes we’re upset not because what they said or did was that terrible, but because it triggered something in us.
So when we journal we can figure that out and if that is the case we can have a calm conversation about it rather than an argument that hurts everyone.
As you can see journaling can be a pretty powerful tool. In fact, it’s super useful even if your mental health doesn’t need a pick-me-up!
A free, printable gift to help improve your mental health!
If you are struggling with depression or mental health in general and are looking to improve it, then I have a free gift for you to download that should help!
And that is my daily self-care routine checklist that I use to help me beat depression!
That way you can go over the daily self-care routine yourself and hopefully that will help you implement those self-care practices that make the biggest difference for me in combating my depression and improving my mental health.
Plus the checklist comes with some bonus ‘planning your day’ printables and they’re just really fun to get your planning on and get your days organized!
Keeping a journal is a great way to improve your mental health. I really hope that these journal prompts help you pour your thoughts and mind onto paper.
