This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.

We may have the assumption that all journaling is good for us, but the last few decades of research have shown us that the extent to which journaling—or expressive writing—is good for us depends a lot on what, exactly, we write about.

One of the most common journaling techniques is freewriting (or free-flow writing). Freewriting involves writing whatever comes to our mind by just letting the thoughts come and putting them onto the page without any filters or concern about grammar, spelling, or storyline. This may include both conscious thoughts and other thoughts that bubble up from the unconscious.

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