I’ve tried face masks and baking — but this simple hobby helped my mental health the most

I’ve had chronic anxiety since I was 14 years old.

As someone who’s deeply sentimental, I also hold on to everything.

This means that over 26 years, across the seven bedrooms I’ve lived in, I’ve accumulated piles of scrap paper, pictures, sweet wrappers, and receipts.

Typically kept in boxes under my bed, I decided it was finally time to channel my soppiness into something meditative.

Enter: junk journaling.

The eclectic hobby involves filling and decorating a handmade book or diary with repurposed ‘junk’.

Marketed as a Gen Z’s approach to scrapbooking, the niche activity has surged in popularity on TikTok, with over 885,000 tagged posts.

It’s free, easy to do, requires zero artistic skill, and has become my absolute favourite daily routine.

I’ve always wanted to be someone with hobbies.

Someone like my housemate, for example, who has ice-skating lessons on Saturdays and plays violin in an orchestra.

But outside of my Goodreads account, I’ve never got very far.

Junk journaling, however, is perfect for people who struggle to commit.

It’s low-effort, high reward.

How do you start junk journaling?

I landed on a black, heavy duty WH Smith number, with a button clasp to keep all my treasures safe.

The only other purchase I made was a pritt stick.

Now you can start!

The idea is to fill the pages with truly anything you want.

For me that’s included a party hat from my best friend’s 27th birthday, a card from my Grandma congratulating me on moving into my new flat in London, and a wrist band from a gig I went to with my girlfriend.

I love the idea of being able to look back on the book in 20 years and recalling a night out with my best friends or a dinner with my parents.

I will say, I have taken junk journaling perhaps a bit too literally at times.

After removing all my nail varnish the other weekend, I had a weird thought that it might be fun to glue down my blue-soaked cotton pads into my diary.

While it looked cool at the time, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.

And when I next went to reopen my diary to plaster in a cinema ticket, I found that the residue liquid from the nail varnish remover had soaked through five pages…
But it’s kind of all part of the fun.

The more mess, the more charming and characterful my journal becomes.

I’ve perfected my raspberry Oreo brownie recipe and tried every brightening face mask Garnier has to offer, but they just don’t scratch the surface.

I’ll never underestimate the power of my sertraline prescription, but when it comes to healing my inner soul, nothing has ever made me feel as calm as junk journaling has.

Holding a Pritt Stick in my hand, I reach a total flow state

Why is junk journaling good for your mental health?

It has encouraged me to slow down, set aside dedicated time to be use my hands for something over than texting, and appreciate some of the most mundane elements on my life.

I mean who knew I’d get so much joy out of gluing old prescription bags into a journal?

And it’s not just me who could benefit from this.

Dr Ahmar Ferguson, education psychologist, tells Metro: ‘Although junk journaling looks playful on the surface, it also taps into something much deeper.

‘It combines three processes we know from research to be helpful for emotional wellbeing: expressive writing, creative self-expression, and mindful activity.

When those elements come together in a low-pressure hobby, they can create a powerful form of everyday self-soothing.

‘There is something important about the non-judgemental nature of junk journaling.

Anxiety often thrives in environments of perfectionism, where people feel pressure to “do things properly” or produce something polished.

Junk journaling removes that expectation.

It is intentionally messy and imperfect.

That freedom can feel regulating because it allows individuals to engage in an activity without the evaluation or performance pressure’.

From both a social and commercial perspective, self care has become somewhat toxic.

It’s become a chore to add to our list or an opportunity to flex our coping mechanisms.

Junk journaling has become a powerful tool for me to just step back from all that and focus on the basics.

As Dr Ahmar says: ‘A quiet half hour with a journal, some scraps of paper and a glue stick might not look like mental health support from the outside, but psychologically it can create space for reflection, emotional release and regulation’.