Are mood journals etc, actually helpful?

Yes, they can help you express your feelings, plus they can help you evaluate your moods over a long period of time and what causes it, helping you to prevent it in the future.

Yes, they help you write and express those feelings, they can evaluate your feelings for a long time, and what causes those, helping to prevent it later in life.

It depends on the person if this is a coping skill that could work for an individual. While journaling can be a very therapeutic resource, it may not work for everybody. The only way to know if it will work for you is to try it. One can start by journaling about positive things that happened in their day, or things they like such as poetry or other things that make you happy. But, you won't know if it works for you unless you try it for yourself.

It helps, to a certain point... It calms you down, just like how musicians sing or play away their pain, or just like how the artist paints away his nightmares, we write to write away our feelings and keep them in a book.

I personally feel like they are a great way to keep track of your emotions. It helps to see a pattern in your behavior.

Personally I think mood journals are very helpful. You can express you're feelings on to paper, so you don't have to worry about saying it outloud. It can be good for distraction, and figuring out how you're feelings work. It's worth a try, definitely.

They can be, if you also have a support system in place. Mood journals help record logical fallacies and mood swings but you may need in being consistently optimistic :)

They can be very helpful. Some people find it helps to let out their feelings and problems. It can release a lot of tension and make your shoulders feel better.

I have found that mood journals or food logs if you're in recovery from an eating disorder are both really helpful. They help me to see I've made any progress or steps to cope.

Different things are helpful to different people, and it really depends on the type of person you are. But if you are interested in trying a mood journal I highly encourage you to keep one for a week or two and see if you like it! It can't hurt to try, right?