Are mood journals etc, actually helpful?

It really is. If you are unsure about how you are feeling, mood journals can be something to try so you can record what you are feeling daily. It helps you controlling all the negative feelings and help you realize when and what lifts up and pulls down your mood.

Journaling can be helpful in many situations. It gives you a chance to express yourself and over time allows you to reflect on what you have been feeling.

Yes because they help track your mood over a period of time for professionals to see and perhaps give you medications or a diagnosis

Yes, because writing down your feelings can really help. Those who write down what they're feeling have more open room to fix what they don't like or how they're feeling by looking at a list. If you have a hard time to remember things, writing everything down will help for future reference. Knowing everything that you find 'different' about yourself can prove difficult, but having it written down for future reference can most definitely help you on the long run. It's always good to get things off your chest, and if talking to someone is uncomfortable for you, writing is most definitely a great option.

Mood journals, diaries, or idea notebooks are really, really helpful. They are great ways to express your ideas and organize the random thoughts floating around our heads onto a piece of paper. Specifically, with mood journals, they help you specifically and concretely express your frustrations or concerns about life and can lead you to find solutions to them. It's also really great for your mental health and wellbeing because storing your pent up anger without letting it out in any sort of way only makes you feel worse over time and eventually burst out in anger. It's best to write those ideas down first. Additionally, writing these ideas down first can help you express yourself to others in the future if necessary.

It depends on many circumstances and factors whether mood journal are helpful for you or not. It depends on what do you write in your mood journals, which mental health issues do you have and whether your mood issues are caused by external factors (bullying, financial, relationship, family, caregiving, work, school or other educational stress or any other significant stresses (loss of dear one, loss of your health or health of your dear ones), or are they caused by internal factors (mental health issues such as depression or physical health issues which can also cause mood issues - anemia or hypothiroidism for example).

In my opinion, they are absolutely helpful! But, they are only as helpful as much as you use them and genuinely engage with them. If you put your all into filling it out, it is a great resource to look back on and promotes reflection: an encouraging way to watch your progress occur! It's hard to know how much progress we've made with healing, growing, etc. but with a mood journal/journaling in general you can easily reference times that were hard or positive and reflect on your past. You can learn so much just from your past self and its old defenses.