If you're in your 20s and you've been scrolling through old pictures and thinking, "Who was I even back then?" you may be onto something more useful than nostalgia. According to a Cornell University study, ‘Strengthening self-continuity to reduce depressive symptoms and derailment: A multiphasic mixed-methods randomized controlled trial,’ published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, journaling about who you used to be, at different points in your life, helped ease depression in a group of young adults. Researchers screened nearly 260 people online, and 111 who had at least moderate depression symptoms completed a two-week journaling exercise. Two months later, those who had journaled about their identity reported significantly fewer symptoms than a control group.
The paper reports a three-phase design: first, 242 emerging adults completed baseline measures of derailment, self-continuity, and depressive symptoms; then 112 eligible participants were randomized to a derailment-focused journaling exercise or a neutral reflective-writing control. Over the two-week intervention, the journaling group answered five prompts about childhood, middle school, high school, college, and their desired future, and the gains were still evident two months later.
