Journitation is a portmanteau I created to highlight the importance of combining journaling and meditation. I believe that the whole of this practice is greater than the sum of its parts.

Journaling

It is no accident that the word journal shares its Latin origin with the word journey. A journal was a written record of daily thoughts and reflections, and a journey once meant a day’s travel.

A journal allows you to chronicle your journey through life, ideally on the path to your purpose.

When handwritten, a journal is embodied thinking. The journal-maker LEUCHTTURM1917 uses this fact as a tagline for their brand: Denken mit der Hand* - Thinking with the hand. (No; while I do enjoy their journals, I don’t get paid for using them.) The act of writing in your journal—as opposed to typing or dictating it—has several benefits.

The extra effort needed to manually write each letter on the page creates a neurological process known as desirable difficulty. When you use your fine motor skills, spatial awareness and sensorimotor integration, your brain creates stronger memory traces. This makes your thinking and learning more durable.

The slower pace of handwriting also has a calming effect on your amygdala (a part of your limbic system: a section of your brain that regulates emotion). You might have heard the term, “Name it to tame it.” In neuropsychology, we say that handwriting activates the insula and anterior cingulate cortex (also part of the limbic system). No matter how you describe it, writing enables emotional self-regulation.

But there’s more!

Journaling by hand is a great way to engage your default mode network (DMN). Your DMN goes to work during periods of introspection and self-reflection (as we will mention again, when talking about meditation). This is a good thing, because your DMN encourages metacognition (thinking about thinking), which helps you detect otherwise hidden thought patterns and beliefs. This is one of the best ways to really get to know yourself.

Put all this together, and you see that journaling helps you externalize your internal dialogue (self-talk), organize and clarify your thoughts, increase your emotional intelligence, and strengthen your neural pathways for memory, self-regulation and positive reframing.

So journaling—by hand, every day—is the best way to clarify and actualize your thoughts. What, then, should you think about?

I’m so glad you asked. It turns out that journaling is especially powerful for optimizing your mindset, in terms of purpose and cognitive coherence, after meditation.

Meditation

Meditation—like ice cream—is fun, and comes in many flavors.

Some of the more popular forms of this timeless practice include Mindfulness Meditation (Vipassana, from Theravada Buddhism), Concentration Meditation (Samatha, from Hindu and Buddhist traditions), Mantra Meditation, such as Transcendental Meditation - popularized in the 1960s and ‘70s - from the Vedic and Tantric traditions), Loving-Kindness Meditation (Metta Bhavana, also from the Buddhist tradition), Seated (Zazen) and walking (Kinhin) meditation, from Zen Buddhism, and Guided Imagery or Visualization, as used in hypnosis, yoga and other modern wellness practices.

There is considerable overlap among the benefits of journaling and those of meditation. Both activate the DMN (discussed earlier) and promote metacognition, both lead to better emotional self-regulation, and are best served in daily doses.

Meditation also has some heavy-hitter benefits of its own.

Possibly the most noticeable, immediate effect is attention training. Meditation teaches you how to quiet the mental noise (“monkey mind”) that constantly competes for your attention. This is a massive step toward mindfulness, because you can focus on the present moment for progressively longer periods of time. The ability to create inner stillness is also a significant weapon in the fight against stress and anxiety, and their associated mental and physical maladies.

Meditation enables you to think and act from a proactive place of calm, rather than a reactive response of anger and pain. This is possible because the process of meditation—by default—increases the mental and temporal space between stimulus and response, giving you the time and ability to thoughtfully assess your situation and make an informed decision regarding your best course of action. The ability to calmly and rationally witness both your external situation and internal experience without judgement will help ensure the optimal outcome in even dramatic and emotionally-charged situations.

In addition, meditation enables physiologic changes, to your benefit.

Meditation immediately activates your parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest,” the opposite of “fight or flight”). This relaxation response not only decreases your limbic system activation (emotional stress and anxiety), but physically decreases your cortisol (stress hormone) levels.

Regular meditation enhances neuroplasticity, which is your brain’s ability to “rewire” itself in more beneficial patterns, in terms of cognition (thinking) and emotion. There are even documented increases in the volume of your brain’s gray matter, in areas that regulate insight, compassion, and spiritual awakening.

Finally, meditation cultivates your inner witness—characterized as the unchanging awareness of Vedanta, the true Self (Atman) in Hinduism, and the luminous mind (Rigpa) of Tibetan Buddhism.

This inner witness enables you to more effectively document your meditative thoughts and experiences in your journal, which brings us full circle.

A Mindful Combo

Journaling and meditation are both aimed at deeper self-awareness and emotional resilience. Both enhance self-regulation and reduce stress.

Meditation quiets the mental noise, so you can become mindful in the present moment and better understand what “makes you tick.” Journaling clarifies and captures your insights and adds context and structure.

Journitation is more effective than meditation and journaling considered separately, because it enables and combines both “bottom-up” (meditation) and “top-down” (journaling) executive functions and processes.

The aim of all of this, of course, is to enhance your ability to choose and express your mindset. Mindset is the lens through which you view and interpret your world, and the filter that informs your decisions and actions.

How to Journitate

My prescription for optimal journitation:

Frequency: daily.

Sequence: meditate first (5–15 min), then journal—by hand—immediately after (5–20 min).

Setting: try to use the same space or situation when you journitate, to make the process habitual, not optional.

Suggestions: try habit-stacking, such as combining your meditation practice with your daily walk. Use a timer, so that you condition yourself for the most effective daily routine.

Suggested journaling prompts post-meditation:

“What was I present to in my body or mind?”
“What feels unresolved?”
“What clarity am I beginning to feel?”
“What breakthroughs came to me?”
“How can I best move towards my stated purpose today?”

Journitation

Meditation and journaling aren’t just tools; they are acts of self-respect, and they potentiate each other (make each other stronger). This is why they are at their best when combined.

Think of journitation as a primary component of mindset, which will inform and activate your purpose. The more efficiently you pursue your purpose, the stronger your sense of satisfaction and well-being; your Hardcore Happiness.

And then—after all this essential journitation—go put your insights into action. Get off your butt, and make it happen. And have some fun while you’re at it.

Create Your World.

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To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, you can contact me on the Hardcore Happiness website, the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page. If you have found value in this article, follow my Instagram account for daily insights, or my X account for occasional tweets. To support this community, you can donate through my Patreon account.

- JWW