This post contains night journal prompts that will help you quiet the chatter in your head and sleep better at night.
Why Use Journaling?
Journaling allows you to express your thoughts and feelings without judgment from others or yourself.
It can also help unburden you of emotions that might be impacting sleep patterns.
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Night Journal Prompts
Here are some of the best journal prompts to put your thoughts to bed and help you sleep faster:
1. What’s on your mind right now?
2. How do you feel right now? Where do you feel it in your body?
3. What was the most prominent emotion you felt today? What triggered that emotion?
Related: How To Sit With Painful Emotions? (Top 9 Difficult Emotions)
4. What was the best part of today?
5. What went right today? What went wrong?
6. What was the biggest challenge of today? Why?
7. How would you describe your day using one word?
8. What did you do or accomplish today that you’re proud of?
9. Did you feel genuine connection today? If so, with who?
10. What are you worried about right now? What would you tell a dear friend who has the same worries?
11. What’s one thing that’s causing you stress lately?
12. What’s one thing you need to let go of?
13. What’s one thing you need to do more of? Less of?
14. What do you feel grateful for right now?
15. How helpful or harmful is your current evening routine? What can you do to tweak it so it’s more helpful to get quality sleep?
Related: Top 45 Self Care Day Ideas at Home To Kickstart Your Self Care Ritual
16. What’s the most important/difficult thing you have to do tomorrow? How can you make sure it gets done?
17. In general, how are you feeling about tomorrow?
18. What does “living a fulfilling life” mean to you?
19. What area of your life do you feel the most fulfilled? What area of your life do you feel least fulfilled? Why?
20. What are you top goals right now? Are you actively working toward them? If not, why?
21. What fills you with joy most?
22. What makes you feel better after a bad day?
23. What’s something in the near future that you’re looking forward to?
24. How would you rate the current state of your mental health on a scale of one to ten? What can you do to improve it?
25. What’s a lesson you can take away from today?
Related: How To Stop Self-Critical Thoughts Using These Top 10 Techniques
Night Journal Prompts PDF
Tips For Journaling Regularly
- Pick a journal that you like and feel comfortable writing in. You may also use digital journal or an audio journal (recoding your voice).
- Schedule time for journaling.
- Meditate for a few minutes. This will help quiet the chatter in your mind and access your deepest thoughts and feelings.
- Do not edit what you’re writing. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.
- Do not worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. You don’t have to do this perfectly.
- Be compassionate and gentle with yourself.
Is It Good to Journal Before Bed?
The short answer is YES!
Journaling before bed helps you calm the chatter in your head and lessen the intensity of difficult emotions.
In fact, one study found that journaling at bedtime, reduced “bedtime worrying” and helped participants fall asleep faster. It also helped participants sleep longer than those who didn’t journal before bed. (source)
Related: How to Get Quality Sleep & Stop Bad Dreams
References
- Online Positive Affect Journaling in the Improvement of Mental Distress and Well-Being in General Medical Patients With Elevated Anxiety Symptoms: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial – PMC (nih.gov)
- How Journaling Can Help You in Hard Times (berkeley.edu)
- What’s All This About Journaling? – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
- Journaling for Mental Health – Health Encyclopedia – University of Rochester Medical Center
- Benefits of Journaling for Mental Health (5 Science-Based Benefits of Journaling for Anxiety and Depression)) | Holstee
- The Mental Health Benefits of Journaling | Psych Central
- 83 Benefits of Journaling for Depression, Anxiety, and Stress (positivepsychology.com)
- Journaling isn’t just good for mental health. It might also help your physical health. (nbcnews.com)
- Benefits of Journaling: The Science and Philosophy Behind Keeping a Di – Intelligent Change
