Journaling for Stress Management

 

Journaling can be an effective way to manage the impact of stress. If you’ve never kept a journal before or you’re not sure how best to use it for stress management, below are a few tips.

 

A few easy ways to use journaling for stress management:

• Gratitude – Spend a few minutes detailing some of the things you’re grateful for. This can be something big such as family and health or something much smaller such as waking up in the morning. Either way, it gets you into the habit of looking at positives, rather than negatives.

• Positive intentions – Spend a minute or two first thing in the morning on setting a positive intention for the day ahead. What would make today a really great day? This can be linked to nutrition, habits, or anything you feel will help you move in a positive direction.

• Positive affirmations or quotes- Creating a couple of positive affirmations is another way to use your journal in the mornings. What do you want to be today? Turn it into a positive, first person affirmation that sets this belief in your mind. Or if you prefer, jot down an inspirational or motivational quote.

• Good things that happened in the day – At the end of the day, write down anything positive that happened, no matter how small. This can be things you’ve achieved or something nice that happened.

• Challenges – If you want to take your journaling a step further, try setting yourself a daily or weekly challenge that pushes you out of your comfort zone, and make a few notes on how you get on.

 

 

Before you jump in, it may be helpful to do a little planning:

• When – Consider of what time of day you see yourself fitting this in. It could be first thing in the morning, while having your morning tea, during a quiet moment waiting for your kids to finish an extracurricular activity, or just before going to sleep. There is no right answer; only the right time that will work for you.

• Location – Where will you sit and journal? Where will you keep your journal?

• Frequency – How often will you journal? While your initial thought may be to journal everyday, it’s important to think about how that will realistically fit into your life. Are there some days that will be easier to journal than others? You might want to start with those easier days. Once you start to create the habit of journaling, if might be easier to find ways to work around barriers on the other days.

The great thing about journaling for stress management is that you don’t need a lot of time to make it work. Even if you only have 5 minutes to spend on it, there are tons of ways to get the most from journaling and reduce your stress levels.