Journaling for men who don't like to write

If you don't like writing, don't write. Talking out loud for a few minutes about what happened, what's bugging you and what you're going to do about it is journaling, and the research on putting experiences into words applies to speech as well as pen and paper. You also don't need to talk about feelings in a way that feels foreign. Start with facts. The rest tends to follow.

Why do so many men avoid journaling?

Ask around and you'll hear the same few reasons:

• "It's a diary." The word brings up a locked notebook and a teenager. Not a tool for a grown man.
• "I'm not a writer." Handwriting is slow, typing on a phone is fiddly, and staring at a blank page feels like homework.
• "I don't do feelings." A lot of journaling advice opens with "how do you feel today?" and many men freeze at that question.
• "What's the point?" No one reads it. No one answers. It feels like talking to a wall.

These are reasonable objections to a particular style of journaling. They aren't objections to the thing itself, which is just this: getting what's in your head out where you can look at it.

They also connect to a wider pattern. In US national survey data for 2019, 13.4% of men had received any mental health treatment in the past year, compared with 24.7% of women. Many men handle things alone. A private, spoken journal is one way to handle them alone a bit better.

Does it work if you're not a "feelings person"?

The best-known research here is James Pennebaker's work on expressive writing: people who wrote about difficult experiences for 15 to 20 minutes on a few days tended to show improvements in physical and mental health measures compared with people who wrote about neutral topics (Pennebaker, 1997).

Two findings are especially relevant if you're a man who'd rather talk:

Men weren't left out. In the first meta-analysis of these studies, Joshua Smyth found that studies with a higher percentage of male participants showed larger overall effects (Smyth, 1998). That's a pattern across studies, not proof that any individual man benefits more, but it cuts against the idea that this is "for women."

Talking counted. In a study of 57 university students, people who talked aloud about stressful events, rather than writing about them, showed the greatest improvements in measures of cognitive change, self-esteem and coping, along with an immune marker (Esterling et al., 1994). It's one small study, but it suggests the spoken version isn't a lesser substitute. There's more on this in Pennebaker's expressive writing, spoken.

How do you journal without talking about feelings?

Use a report format. Three questions, in order:

1. What happened? Just the facts. "Meeting with the boss went badly. He brought up the missed deadline in front of the team."
2. What's bugging me about it? "Not the feedback. The fact that he did it in front of everyone."
3. What am I going to do? "Ask for ten minutes tomorrow. Say I'd rather hear that one-on-one."

Then add one more line: one word for how you feel. "Embarrassed." "Angry." "Flat." That's it.

That single word does more than it seems. In a UCLA brain-imaging study, putting a feeling into words reduced activity in the amygdala, a region involved in emotional reactions, compared with other ways of processing the same image (Lieberman et al., 2007). You don't have to dwell on it. You just have to name it. More in name it to tame it.

Talk to yourself like a coach

If "I feel" still sticks in your throat, switch to the second or third person. Instead of "I'm stressed about the interview," try "Mike, you're stressed about the interview. Here's what you're going to do."

That's not just a trick. In a series of studies, Ethan Kross and colleagues found that people who reflected on a stressful situation using their own name or "you" instead of "I" performed better and showed less distress in stressful tasks like giving a speech (Kross et al., 2014). It puts a little distance between you and the problem, like advice from someone on your side. See distanced self-talk for how to use it.

Where and when should you do it?

Not at a desk with a candle. Pick a spot where you're already alone and your hands or eyes are free:

• In the car, parked. Before you walk into the house after work. Two minutes, engine off.
• On a walk. Many men find it easier to talk side by side with a friend than face to face. Walking alone with a recorder works the same way.
• After the gym. Body tired, head clear.
• In the garage, the shed, the backyard. Wherever you go to be left alone.
• Last thing at night. One minute, lights off.

If talking to yourself feels ridiculous at first, that's normal and it passes. Feeling awkward talking to yourself has some ways through it.

Prompts for men who hate prompts

Plain questions, no poetry:

• What's the thing I keep thinking about?
• What am I putting off, and why?
• Who did I let down this week, and who let me down?
• What went right today that I'd normally ignore?
• What would I tell my best friend if he were in my spot?
• What am I angry about, really?
• What's one thing I want to remember about my kids, my partner or my dad from this week?
• If this week were a game tape, what would I do differently?
• What am I proud of that nobody noticed?
• What decision am I avoiding?

What journaling is not

It's not therapy, and it doesn't replace talking to people. If an entry keeps circling the same dark place, or you notice weeks of "flat," "done," "what's the point," treat that as information. Talk to a doctor, a counselor, or someone you trust. In the US you can call or text 988 at any hour to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Elsewhere, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line.

How Monologue helps

Monologue is a voice journal for iPhone and Apple Watch, built for exactly the kind of journaling described here. One tap starts a recording, from the app, a Lock Screen widget or your watch, so you can do it in the car or on a walk without opening anything. There's no blank page, no time limit and no typing. Every monologue is transcribed, and your own tags (Work, Family, Health, whatever) are applied when they fit.

It's private. Your monologues live on your iPhone and in your own iCloud, with transcripts encrypted end to end. There are no ads and no tracking, and Monologue's servers delete your audio once it's transcribed.

If you'd rather talk than write, try Monologue. It doesn't have to make sense.