Discipline or Deprivation?: The Dark Side Of Wellness Journals

With every new year, we're met with optimism about how to enrich and better our lives. You've got the standard gym New Year's Resolutioners (who also deserve to take up space in the weights room, thanks very much). You've got the healthy eaters, the 10,000 steps a day-ers, and the Goodreads-inspired "I'll read 50 books this year" brainy babes. All valid and worthwhile pursuits.

Most recently, wellness journals have sauntered onto the scene, promising a more efficient, aesthetically pleasing way to track our habits and stick to those goals. On TikTok, wellness journal content has already amassed over 90 million views. The videos show an alternative universe (at least to the one I'm living in), filled with Papier Journals, perfect bed linen, handwriting that deserves a space in a gallery, lit candles, and dreamy, calm music.

It's a space many of us have often idealised, and for good reason. "Many of these journals offer us the structure and space to take note of different aspects of our lives that we feel might need a little more consideration in order to develop or to shift," psychologist Ash King told Refinery29 Australia. In order to maintain your willpower, King argues that it's most useful to choose just one aspect of your life to focus on. This could be anything from tracking your mood and emotions, diet, physical movement, healthy habits (such as meditation, journaling, or yoga), or actions taken towards larger goals.

But while it can be tempting to only look at the positives, we're human — and unfortunately, the human condition tends to ignore the positive changes we make and focus solely on where we fall short. We're always our worst enemy. Often, journaling and tracking can help us if we have warped or disordered ideas of certain habits, and offer us more clarity into how they show up in our lives. For example, if you've identified that you want to improve the quality of your relationships, King says you can track how many times you've caught up with your mates each month.

But it's easy to get carried away.

Drink four litres of water every day, cut out sugar, meditate, journal, work out five times a week, get nine hours of sleep a night, delete TikTok and Instagram and reduce your screen time, log all your food, do yoga, stop spending money, eliminate caffeine, weigh yourself, make your bed, eat intuitively, track calories, get an Apple Watch, use a standing desk. The pursuit of eternal optimisation. Just. Keeps. Coming.

TikTok creator, Brodie Lancaster, used a spreadsheet to track her habits and consumption every day in 2022. This included brushing and flossing her teeth, whether she did her skincare routine, how often she cleaned her home, what movies she watched, what books she read, and hell, even how many cigarettes she smoked. And while the data farming at the end of each month is truly the stuff of dreams, I couldn't help but wonder about the psychological implications for me, if I were to analyse every action and decision I made (or did not make) during the day.

"If you find that you're preoccupied with tracking all aspects of your life, to the degree that it is yanking you out of being present in your actual experiences, it might be time to step back," King says. It's important to leave room for life's messy and unpredictable nature, despite overwhelming desires to cling to structure and accountability.

For those who have a propensity towards perfectionism and greet anxiety and depression like old friends (it's me, hi), wellness journals might actually hinder your efforts more than they help. "It's always possible to take habits — even healthy ones — to the extreme," King says. And a lot of it has to do with the relationship you have with yourself. Are you prone to beating yourself up, especially when you fall short of your goals or you find yourself tracking some less-than-desirable habits or behaviours? Then it's important to be more mindful of how tracking impacts your life.

If you have any mental illnesses such as OCD or a history of disordered eating or body image, it might be even more dangerous to keep a wellness diary. King urges people in this camp who want to journal to work with a mental health practitioner to initiate a practice of tracking, otherwise, it might create issues for you.

But there are plenty of alternatives to the ol' wellness journal. If you find yourself triggered or agitated by the tracking process, a reflective practice might be more beneficial for you, says King. At the end of each week, consider writing a little about how you're feeling and operating in a particular area of your life. You could also meet up with a supportive friend who is keen to develop similar habits, and instead of journalling, have catch-ups where you discuss your wins and challenges (with a nice peppermint tea in hand, ideally).

Let's be clear: there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself and your life. That's what growth is. But in a society that's constantly praising us for remaining disciplined, deprived and depressed, sometimes the most revolutionary thing you can do is close the book. When your pretty highlighted journals with perfect handwriting transform into an outlet for self-hatred, a manifestation of disordered eating or exercise habits, or an excuse to deprive yourself of things you enjoy, then it's time to really evaluate how much wellness your wellness journal is actually feeding you.