Rewiring Your Brain: The Powerful Impact of Journaling and Neuroplasticity

In recent years, the conversation around mental health and personal growth has increasingly turned to the concept of neuroplasticity—the brain’s incredible ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This adaptability allows us to change patterns of thinking, behavior, and emotional responses, making healing and transformation not just possible, but achievable. One surprising yet accessible tool that supports this neurological rewiring? Journaling.

Photo by Anne Bartlett Photography

I am a lifelong journaler, having written in my first diary in second grade. I had a little green pocket sized notebook with the classic latch, lock and key that kept all my 8 year old secrets private. I have always written in my journals by hand too, sometimes with pencil, but more often with a smooth, inky pen which seemed to raise the stakes of permanency at the risk not being able to erase my deepest thoughts from the page. The pages of a journal, sometimes lined, sometimes in a sketchbook that invited doodles, have been a place for me to discover emotions, plan the path to achieving a dream, or even to make confessions. I have learned about myself by putting words to murky thoughts that were lacking clarity, and safely expressing those words without the threat of them hurting anyone.

But more recently, journaling became a tool, THE tool, that I used to reprogram a lifetime of thought habits that kept me stuck in depression and anxiety. I learned that neuroplasticity means that I have the power to change my thoughts. I also learned that it's my thoughts that create my emotions, so if I wanted to change how I felt about my life, I had to first change my thoughts. I'll show you what I mean.

Every day I would wake up in fight or flight survival mode, panicked about what new threat I would face that day. I said things to myself like, "I am so sick of struggling." It was true: I struggled. Financially, emotionally, as a single mother, always wondering if were going to make it through life okay, wondering when things would be better and not so hard. After years of saying, "I'm so sick of struggling," my identity became that of someone who struggled. I struggle. And this identity meant (in the back of my mind) that if this was who I was, then it was unchangeable.

And then a friend introduced me to a coaching program where I had the opportunity to take a 3 day free workshop, which blew my mind, and literally changed it. I learned how to rewrite my thoughts and rewire my brain. I learned that I had been in the habit of struggle. I had come to expect it around every turn. This is just how my life was. Did you know that when you create habits, your brain forms grooves where you repeatedly think thoughts? I was stuck in the thought groove of "I'm so sick of struggling." I had to create a new groove for my thoughts to travel on, and to do that I started writing new thoughts down in my journal. Every day for a year, I wrote "Everywhere I look I see blessings of abundance." Guess what happened? No, I didn't win the lottery. I didn't manifest a million dollars to end my financial worries. In fact, my financial situation barely changed in terms of dollar amounts over this past year. What did change was my heart.

I started to notice where there was indeed abundance in my life. You know when you're shopping for a new car and you decide you want a Honda Civic and all of a sudden you see Honda Civics everywhere? It's the same principal at work. What you focus on matters. I chose to shift my focus to gratitude rather than struggle and it made all the difference.

I also believe that what we feel in our hearts travels through our bodies, through our hands, and into our handwork. Our handwork then sends energy back through our hands, into our bodies and heals our hearts. I wrote powerful words in my journal by hand, and they in turn sent powerful healing to my heart. There's no science that proves this is true, just my own experiences with making things my whole life. But here is some science that connects journaling to neuroplasticity:

1. Strengthens Self-Awareness--Journaling helps you step outside your automatic thoughts and observe them objectively. By putting your inner world into words, you're engaging the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for reasoning, planning, and self-reflection. Over time, this practice strengthens the neural pathways associated with self-awareness—an essential component of personal growth and emotional regulation.

2. Interrupts Negative Thought Loops--Regular journaling can essentially re-train your brain to default to more balanced, less catastrophic thinking. I practiced thinking new thoughts full of gratitude by writing them down every day, and trained my brain to think this way.

3. Builds Emotional Resilience--Naming emotions in writing (“I feel anxious,” “I feel overwhelmed”) activates the brain’s language centers, which helps calm the emotional limbic system. This process, known as affect labeling, makes emotions more manageable and supports the brain’s ability to regulate them. And with those emotions safely contained on the page, they are yours to rewrite.

4. Encourages Cognitive Flexibility--When you explore multiple perspectives in your journal—asking “What else could be true?” or writing from another person’s point of view—you’re flexing your brain’s ability to shift perspectives. This flexibility is a core feature of neuroplasticity and is crucial for growth, adaptability, and resilience.

5. Supports Goal Setting and Creation of Pathways to Achieving Goals--Journaling about your goals, intentions, and progress helps reinforce intentional neural pathways. Each time you write about a new habit or visualize a future version of yourself, you’re laying the groundwork in your brain to make that version real.

   
   

   Journaling is more than just a tool for self-expression—it’s a low-tech, high-impact method for shaping your brain. It helps transform unconscious patterns into conscious choices, and reactive emotions into intentional responses. When practiced daily, journaling becomes an act of rewiring, of creating new habits. It becomes a conversation between your present self and the future you’re creating. So pick up your pen. Your brain is listening.