The Magic of Gratitude Journaling
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude... Read More

Event Planning Software: A Beginners Guide to Journaling Management
As I said in the first article in this series, when you enter the world of event planning, the one thing you realize very quickly is that flexibility is a necessity. Your event planning software will need to track appointments, events, journaling... Read More

How Journaling Can Positively Impact Your Physical Health
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, writing about stressful life events helped reduce symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis in patients with these chronic illnesses. The effects of the writing exercise were still... Read More

Journaling, Anxiety & Stress

What is Journaling and How can it help?

Journaling is the practice of writing your thoughts on paper, whatever they may be. It is sort of a freestyle approach to problem solving as it is written only for the writer, free from restrictions as the only person who is going to read it is you. If you are in a treatment program you may wish to share it with your health care proffesional to aid in your treatment but that is completely up to you. You have total control over who reads it (if anyone at all) and what goes into it. It is imprtant to remember that when writing in your journal to write from within and to be totally honest with your thoughts and feelings. If you hold back your thoughts or feelings in anticipation that someone will read it, then you are completely wasting your time engaging in this exercise.

How Do I Write a Journal?

There are no real rules to journal writing. However you do want to be as honest as possible with your thoughts and feelings or you will only be wasting your own time and fooling yourself. It is best to set aside a time and place free from distractions when making an entry. DO NOT write when you are in the same room that you sleep. Why? When writing your journal you may experience an assortment of powerful feelings (sadness,anger, joy). If you make a habit of writing in your bedroom you may associate the place where you rest as a place to deal with your emotions and may start finding it difficult to get some sleep. Make yourself as comfortable as possible in another room, get a cup of tea, put on some music and shut off the TV. It is ok if you don't know what to write about at first, just start writing the first thing that comes to mind and allow yourself to let go from there. At first it may seem a little awkward but with persistence it get's easier. A topic that everyone can start on is writing about your days events. Focus on what you were doing, how you were feeling and thoughts you were having at a particular time. Write only as much as you feel you can handle at any given sitting, but do try and write something daily. If you are using journal writing as an aid to conquer anxiety, try to focus on specific situations that cause you the most symptoms. Focus on the 5 W's, Who, What, Where, When and Why. By doing this you can refer back to any given day and may see what was contributing to your anxiety. You may also see the things that helped you to get through some tough times. You may find things out about yourself that you were unaware of such as stressful areas in you life or things you miss doing. The whole idea of the exercise is to explore your feelings and thoughts no matter what they are, to learn about who you are and grow as a person.

About the author:
Written by psychiatric nurse, webmaster/author of the website anxietyhelponline, an anxiety, panic and stress self help resource. 12/10/05 AnxietyHelpOnline