One effective method to increase your awareness of the stress you experience on a daily basis is to document your thoughts and feelings. When you tend to overthink, it may appear as if there are numerous issues you need to address simultaneously, making it challenging to pinpoint the exact source of your anxiety. By putting your thoughts on paper, you can better evaluate and identify the root cause of your stress, making it easier to address and manage.
Let’s look at the various journaling techniques that we can use to become aware of our stressors and reduce them eventually.
Positive Affect Journaling:
Positive Affect Journaling (PAJ) is particularly helpful in handling stress. In this technique, we need to write about the stressful experience for 15-20 minutes for 3-5 days. The main point is to gradually shift your focus onto positive aspects. To do that, you can use prompts like: What has someone done to help you? What are you grateful for? What are your ultimate values and principles?
Let’s see an example to understand this better:
Suppose you had a heated argument with someone. You can sit down and first “vent” a little to put words to what you’re feeling. For example, “I can’t believe she’d say that, and I’m so hurt . . .” As you write, however, you could gradually start to reframe the stressful encounter in more positive terms. “I’m glad I was able to step away and cool off before I said something I regret. That’s one thing to be proud of. And I suppose one good thing that has come from this is that we are finally having this difficult conversation we should have had years ago.”
Usually, such an argument will trigger 1000 thoughts and emotions in your head. You will keep playing the situation in your head over and over again. What if this or that? Why this? Why that? Your mind will keep churning.
With this technique, you are able to focus your mind to resolve an issue or understand the root cause, rather than just chewing over it!
The only trick with this approach is to make sure that you are constantly moving toward something more positive. You are not just venting and complaining, but allowing your expression over time to be transformed into something healthier and more balanced.
Stress Diary:
Another technique is to use a stress diary. Usually, in order to de-stress, we try to take a break or avoid thinking about it, rather than facing them head-on. And because we avoid them, we can’t even take the first step to addressing the issue. And it keeps coming back to hound us.
And over time, we lose awareness of the core issue and when asked, why so stressed, we say, “I don’t know . . . work,” But what is it exactly about work that is stressing us?
A stress diary is a written record of your level of stress and the accompanying information, which you can analyze later and use to take steps to manage stress. The diary can be as simple as a written record of the time and date and how you’re feeling at that moment. For feelings, a common way to do this is on a rating scale (for example, 1 for not stressed at all and 10 for super stressed), but you can also use feeling words (like exhausted/tense), or note physical symptoms (like sweaty palms).
Then, note any stressful events that have recently happened as well as any ideas for what you feel could be the causes of your current state. Finally, note how you responded to the event and what the overall outcome was.
The stress diary alone represents a key mindset shift in how you approach anxiety. Instead of noticing stress and overthinking and then running away from them screaming, you get curious. Instead of saying, “Something bad is happening; it has to stop,” and doing whatever you can to evade that sensation, you are simply interested in asking what is happening. What is it that is making me feel this stressed?
The benefit of a stress diary is that it gives you objective, workable data that can be analyzed later to identify patterns and triggers. For example, if you notice that you get particularly stressed during Zoom meetings, you can use this information to take steps to manage your stress during those meetings, such as taking breaks or using relaxation techniques. A stress diary can also help you become more aware of your stress levels and identify when you need to take steps to manage them.
Make an entry every time you feel your mood shifting, or when you’re noticeably stressed. Try to keep judgment and interpretation out of it—you are only gathering data. Become aware, as you write in your diary, that noticing anxiety is not necessarily the same as engaging with it. Keep a stress diary for a few days or a week, and then sit down to analyze it and find any patterns: What are the most frequent causes of stress, i.e., what usually comes before a sudden rise in stress or drop in mood? How do these events typically affect your productivity? How do you normally respond to these events, emotionally and behaviorally, and is your approach working? Can you identify a level of stress that was comfortable and beneficial for your productivity? This last point brings to attention something we can easily forget in our blind hurry to de-stress: We all need some stress in life! A stress diary can help you identify your optimal range. So for example, you might notice that you are at a stress level of around 2 or 3 out of 10, but that this level is relatively comfortable and a zone where you are at your most productive and efficient. You can learn not only the level of stress that works best for you but also the kind of stress that is beneficial. This is a vital insight you would not get without taking the time to keep a stress diary.
When you analyze your stress diary like this, you are working with real data that can help you make insightful changes. You may even be surprised at some findings—only in writing things down at the moment do you see clear patterns emerge. You don’t need to keep a stress diary forever. In fact, after using it for a few weeks, the process might become automatic and you may develop more spontaneous awareness at the moment, as stress is occurring.
Generic Journalling:
The format described above isn’t the only way that writing things down can help. You can keep a more traditional journal and explore your feelings generally, whether occasionally or every day. Writing things down can relieve stress on its own, but it can also help you gather your thoughts, hash out problems, find insights, and process any issues you’re going through. Use journaling or diaries according to what you like and what works in your situation.
Gratitude Journal:
If you’re battling a low mood and find your anxiety is general and seems to affect everything, you might find a gratitude journal helpful. Simply list five things daily that you are thankful for, even if it’s nothing more exciting than your morning cup of coffee or the fact that you have a nice new pair of socks. This can help you focus on the good things in your life and make you feel more positive(not recorded).
Some people like to get creative with their journaling by using colors and pictures to express themselves and gather inspiration and encouragement. It can be fun and inspiring. Others like to use journals that come with prompts already printed inside. However, journals are not for everyone. If they make you feel like you need to be perfect or if you’re only focusingI on the journal and not on your emotions, then you might want to try a different technique. Try to finish every journaling session with something positive and grounding—recite a mantra, visualize something positive, or consider some possibilities and solutions going forward. If you don’t make sure to return to a positive headspace, journaling may start to feel like it only encourages more unhappiness and overthinking.
Please try journalling and let me know about your experiences in the comments below. These practices that I share with you are very experiential and you won’t actually know that they work unless you try them.
If you have not already read it, I would strongly recommend that you also go through this article, where we discussed what is overthinking, what are its origins, and how it can send us down a negative spiral. We also discussed the 3 key factors influencing it. This understanding is critical to be able to tackle the issue at its core.
