We have always heard journaling or writing your diary is a very good habit. Nobody’s explained to me how it helps or why it’s such a good habit.

Having done it for some time, I finally found an answer to both those questions. This is how it’s worked for me.

The Tetris Effect

Before I get to journaling, let me first explain the Tetris Effect. It’s a term from psychology and its also known by a lot of other names.

Have you ever had a marathon session playing any video game. It could be Tetris, or Grand Theft Auto, or FIFA or even Candy Crush. Where you have played it everyday for a few hours or just stayed up all night playing it.

What usually tends to happen after an overdose of any such game, is that you start to see this game in your real life also. People who play Tetris have reported that they see buildings and gaps and think of moving one building inside the gap to complete the line. Just like they do in the game.

Similarly players of Grand Theft Auto have reported that after the game, whenever they see parked cars, they think which one is the most vulnerable one to steal.

Now for some neuroscience jargon.

This effect stems from a very normal process that repeated playing triggers in our brains. In neuroscience it’s called “Cognitive Afterimage”. Essentially, it does a re-wiring of the brain. Creates new neural pathways. And changes how we see things.

In case you didn’t know this. Our brains decide what we see and how we see this. They filter out 99% of what we see and use per-existing information inside the brain to make sense of what we see. Happy to share more on this if you are interested.

Ancient Wisdom

Now from Neuroscience to ancient wisdom. This one comes from Buddhist master Haimin Sunim.

A nun was in charge of building the meditation hall of a temple. When they were placing tiles on the roof, I saw tiles everywhere I went. I noticed their thickness, the material, the design. And then when it came to installing the floor, I saw floors everywhere. I noticed their colour, durability, pattern, wear and tear, etc etc.

And then it dawned on me. The world we see is not the entire universe but only what the mind or brain cares about.

This is Haenim Sunim’s takeaway from this

What our mind focuses on becomes our world. We look at the world through the lens of our mind. We will always notice what we are looking for, because our mind will focus on it.

The power of Conscious Focus

See the similarity in neuroscience and ancient wisdom. It’s always the case by the way. I strongly believe that there is no new wisdom. Every new insight is just a new application or a new use case of ancient wisdom. Anyways. This is a discussion for another time.

What’s happening here.

In all these cases, there is a high level of consciousness. Or simply said, its high on our minds. Your brain is aware and focussed on it all the time. So we notice it and see it everywhere.

Now we understand the Tetris Effect and how it can affect us negatively.

There are other examples from our daily life. Tax accountants who look for errors 10 hours a day became hardwired to look for errors. And it spilled over into all areas of their lives leading to many unpleasant situations.

It’s not all bad news by the way. The good news is that the Tetris Effect can also be put to positive use.

How can we use the Tetris Effect in a positive way?

You have to just replicate how the Tetris Effect or the Cognitive Afterimage gets developed in your brain for the positive effects that you are seeking. We can plan and execute the process of repetition or high focus for the specifics things that we are seeking.

And in case you haven’t guessed it yet, this where journaling comes into play.

Journaling regularly is like playing many games of Tetris or Grand Theft Auto. It creates the same repetition effect of Cognitive AfterImage. And you can decide what you want to focus on. Repeated focus on that subject through journaling will create higher focus and you will be able to use the Tetris Effect positively. You will have high focus on that subject like the Nun in Haenim Sunim’s story.

In what what ways can journaling be put to use ?

There are three specific ways in which you can do this. This is based on my experiences and limited knowledge. I am certain there are lots of other use cases.

The first benefit is in improving our biases.

I am sure you read about biases. You are aware of them. You have every intention to avoid them. But why do you still end up making the same bias induced mistakes? Why do you forget about them at the right time.

Because your brain can’t seem to remember these things at the right time.

It’s for lack of consciousness. Your brain has low focus on this bias.

So what can you do about it?

You can copy the Tetris Effect. Start journaling about it. About your own experience with that bias. Every time you have ignored that bias. You can even journal about other people’s experiences. If you reflect about all the decisions you and others around you made in the day, you will notice lots of situations where biases where at play. Slowly you will notice greater awareness and focus on that bias.

 The second benefit is in increasing positivity in our lives.

We are generally very sceptical and cynical. Life seems to be bad and lots of bad things seem to happening to us all the time.

You should start what they call Gratitude Journaling. Every day. Or every two days, just write down the 2 or 3 good things that happened to you that day. It could be the simplest of things. Someone acknowledged your work. You had your favourite dessert. Someone called. You did some shopping.

Initially you will find it hard to remember these things. Because our brains are too wired to remember the negative stuff. But slowly you will get better. And as the Tetris Effect will build, you will notice good things around yourself all the time. You will become a more positive person. And this will happen without any real change happening around you. Things will be the same. Just your conscious and ability to notice will change. These good things were happening earlier also.

The third benefit is improving our relationships.

We often make bad choices when we are emotionally charged. It affects our relationships. And then we regret them later. Similarly, people around us have certain expectations from us. And yet we forget about it all the time. We don’t mean to. And if someone could have reminded us, we would have done it. Journaling can help with both. If you start writing about your relationship. What’s going well and what’s not. What mistakes you are making regularly, then things will start getting better. You will become better at remembering the important things at the right time and in the right moments. And the relationship will get better.

Journaling is method to use our mains and brains more effectively

Haenim Sunim says that we experience the world according to the state of our mind. We can control that by training our mind and choosing wisely what to focus.

Journaling is how we do can do that.

Our brain is our greatest gift. It’s a supercomputer. It’s capable of a lot more than what we use it for. Journaling is one way of using our brain more effectively.

The monks and sages have great mental control through years of practise.

We can’t do that.

We can do journaling

Happy Journaling

(Avnish is a Co-Founder and MD/CEO at CaratLane. Avnish is passionate about building new businesses and has spent more than 15 years in the consumer internet space. In one of his previous roles at Times Internet, he built Code Gladiators, which is now the largest coding competition in the world. He is a graduate of IIM Lucknow and Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Outside of work, he loves to read a wide range of topics and actively follows a lot of different sports. He writes and talks about his interests from time to time.)