Best Self-Care and Gratitude Journals For 2023
The Best Self-Care and Gratitude Journals For Starting Your Day on a Positive Note
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Practicing mindfulness and achieving an inner-zen is (admittedly!) much easier said than done — especially these days with so many different distractions right at our fingertips. Oftentimes, it can feel impossible trying to block out all of the outside noise and find the time to truly sit with ourselves, our emotions, and even our thoughts. Therapy and other recreational activities like yoga are great tools for helping you to practice peace and gratitude on the daily. But if you're looking for something simpler to do at home that can help you start your day off on the right foot, self-care and gratitude journals are also a great alternative to turn to — especially for those looking to embrace the new year with a fresh set of resolutions!
You don't need more than a pen and paper to practice journaling and reap a variety of stress-relieving, mindfulness-promoting benefits. But, guided journals specifically catered to self-care, wellness practices, and gratitude with prompts and insightful exercises may help you keep the habit. They also make beautiful, thoughtful, and caring gifts for any loved ones who are motivated to be their best selves, as they help to ease anxiety and promote more gratitude on the daily.
From self-care journals and document positive affirmations to planners that track your daily to-dos, feelings, and even eating or spending habits, there are so many thoughtful self-care and gratitude journals out there that double as the perfect gifts to give (and receive!) this season — because your own self-care deserves your attention, too. Shop our favorites ahead!
— Additional reporting by Jenny Sugar
Best Overall Journal: The Five-Minute Journal
According to this The Five Minute Journal ($29), all it takes is five minutes to completely re-adjust your mindset, start your day off on the right note, and get better about practicing your gratitude habits more frequently. Who knew? One POPSUGAR editor even said it made her a morning person in this Five-Minute Journal product review.
Best Journal For Writing: The Happiest Gratitude Journal
The pocket-size The Happiest Gratitude Journal ($10) sets you up for a cheery 30-day challenge of documenting things you're most grateful for. Users can follow along with writing down acts of kindness and self-care sessions in real-time. And best of all: they can better practice gratitude on the go, thanks to the journal's small and compact design.
Best Journal For Reflection: Gratitude: A Day and Night Reflection Journal
This guided Gratitude Journal ($11, originally $17) includes 90 days of morning meditation and evening reflections, so you can start and end your day with gratitude. Each page allows you to consider your daily focus, positive affirmations, what you're grateful for and excited about, your feelings, and a positive thought to think about when you fall asleep. This journal is 184 pages, hardcover, and measures 5.75 x 8.25 inches.
Best Journal For Busy People: The 6-Minute Diary
The 6-Minute Diary ($28) features daily pages where you can take three minutes to reflect on the start of your day, and three minutes to reflect at the end. You'll focus on three things you're grateful for, how to make today great, a positive affirmation, a good deed you did that day, how you'll improve, and three things you appreciated that day. There are also weekly and monthly self-reflections. This hardcover journal comes in turquoise, antique pink, gray, orchid pink, and sky blue.
Best Journal to Build Habits: Self-Care Check-In: A Guided Journal to Build Healthy Habits
The Self-Care Check-In: A Guided Journal to Build Healthy Habits and Devote Time to You ($10, originally $13) guides users through activities and prompts split up into three well-organized sections — reflect, focus, and do. The goal of the journal is to use self-care as a method to solve problems and issues plaguing us, rather than escaping them.
Best Journal For Mental Health: Papier Wellness Journal
Papier's Wellness Journal ($35) starts off with a kind and gentle reminder that practicing mindfulness is about practice — not perfection. The 12-week journal is filled with sections dedicated to outlining "feel-good goals," and your progress toward them, sections to jot down nourishing meals, and reflection pages.
Best Self-Care Journal: Self-Care: A Day and Night Reflection Journal
This 90-day hardcover Self-Care Journal ($12, originally $17) will inspire you to commit to your self-care routine, encouraging healthy habits like sleeping well, eating nourishing food, getting in the habit of daily movement, and more. Plus, it promotes the habitual practice of doing other enriching things that simply bring you joy such as socializing, journaling, meditating, and expressing gratitude.
Best Meditation Journal: The Habit Nest Meditation Sidekick Journal
Through insightful and educational sections about the benefits of meditation, instructions on guided meditation, and more, The Habit Nest Meditation Sidekick Journal ($40, originally $52) helps users expand, commit to, and document their practice. For example, the top of each page features a section where users write down how long they meditated for, how they felt after, and how they can improve their inner dialogue.
Best Gratitude Journal: Papier Joy Gratitude Journal
With its golden and eye-popping front cover, this Papier Joy Gratitude Journal ($32, originally $35) is boosting our serotonin levels and making us feel significantly peppier — and all before we've even opened the actual journal yet. The book is filled with five months worth of entries and prompts, all geared at helping users to seek out and appreciate more mindful moments within their day to day lives.
Best Journal For People With Anxiety: The Anti-Anxiety Notebook
This The Anti-Anxiety Notebook ($30, originally $38) should be required reading for everyone — it's that cool and important. Not only is the self-care notebook created by actual therapists, it also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques to help readers lower their anxiety and better control their stress levels.
