How to journal for anxiety

Journaling to Challenge Anxious Thoughts

The goal of this process is to get your worries on paper so you can break the cycle of rumination, challenge those thoughts, and come up with ways to address them. Here’s how to start.

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Write Your Worries

Start by journaling for five to 15 minutes, and write about whatever is on your mind. Keep going until you feel you have written what needs to be said but haven’t delved into rumination.

Describe the events that are currently causing difficulties for you. Keep in mind that with anxiety, sometimes it isn’t what is currently happening that causes stress, but the concerns you have about what could happen.

Reread and Re-Think

As you review what you’ve written and reflect on your concerns, explore your options. Could things be different? Is there something that you could do to change your circumstances right now—or to change your thoughts about your circumstances?

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Ask yourself questions like:

• How likely is it that this will happen? How do you know? Are you sure?
• If what you fear does occur, could it be less of a negative experience than you think it would be? Could it be neutral or even positive?
• Is there a way you could use your circumstances to create a better outcome? Could you use what you have available to make the best of the potential changes? Is there a change that could occur (or that you could create) that would be even better?

Think Differently

For each fear or concern you have, try to write at least one way (but preferably more) in which you could think about it differently. Generate a new story for yourself, even a new set of possibilities. Write these next to the fears that are in your head right now.

It can also be helpful to examine your cognitive distortions to see how you might benefit from changing habitual stress-inducing thought patterns.

Recall Your Strengths

Think about the biggest challenges you’ve faced and overcome. Looking at your strongest, wisest moments, do you think you could use that same strength and wisdom to prevail in this potential challenge as well?

What do you think you could learn from it? In what ways do you think you would gain strength as you face these new obstacles?

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Thinking about your strengths and your best moments can help you to remember that, while you may not enjoy your current circumstances, you have the strength to handle what comes. You may find new strengths you didn’t know you had!

Consider a Plan

Assuming what you fear did happen, what would you do? You don’t have to create a full plan, just try to jot down the resources you would utilize and the next steps you’d take.

Thinking through your plan takes away the fear of the unknown. If you know that you would have the resources available to you should you need them, your mind is more likely to stay away from the worst-case scenarios (toward which we all sometimes gravitate).

Decide How to Prepare

Come up with at least one thing you can do right now that would prepare you for what you fear. Perhaps you could:

• Build your resources by reaching out to friends and strengthening your relationships
• Develop skills that are useful now and in the future, if your fears were realized
• Create an effective stress management plan to help you be more emotionally resilient should you face a big challenge or need to endure some extra stress

Putting your energy into a plan can help you move out of a place of anxiety and toward a place of empowerment. Even if you don’t need them, you have resources that can help you in your life right now (plus, you’ve distracted yourself in the process).

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