7 Journaling Exercises to Release Your Anxiety and Fears and Calm Your Mind
When it comes to relieving stress and anxiety, journaling can be a powerful tool to bring your mind and body at an ease.
Anxiety can manifest itself in many ways whether it is physical or mental. Once anxious thoughts creep into your mind, they can be really hard to get rid of. You get sucked into this never-ending spiral of negative thoughts and soon, you are simultaneously anxious as well as stressed out of your mind.
When faced with seemingly uncontrollable thought patterns like these, journaling can help you recenter yourself and provide stress relief.
Journaling prompts you to have a cool-headed conversation with yourself and reduce stress in the process. Instead of wallowing in your problems, it helps you become action-oriented and liberated while calming your mind.
Setting aside a few minutes to journal daily can be monumental in combating your anxiety and fears. The next time you find yourself getting lost in your thoughts, try doing one or more of these 7 exercises to bring yourself back to being more focused and relaxed.
Write Your Blessings
A good way to start your day is to set aside 5-15 minutes of your morning to write about all the things you are thankful for, no matter how big or small.
Practicing gratefulness in your writing can be a mental health game-changer. It can boost your mood along with manifesting itself in your cheerfulness. Immerse yourself in what you are writing and you will feel the tension release.
No matter how trivial something might seem, include it in the list. Chances are, you will come to view things in a new light and appreciate things you never appreciated before.
Write Your Worries
One of the most useful journaling exercises to improve your mental health is to jot down your worries on a piece of paper.
Write about the things that are bothering you at the moment and keeping you away from happiness. Putting your thoughts on paper can help bring them into perspective.
Keep on writing until you feel that you have written down all your worries and then move on to the next exercise or distract yourself with something else. Just remember to be calm and not let your mind get carried away while writing your worries.
Write Your Fears
We all suffer from fears.
What we don’t realize is that fears are largely based on our presumptions and not facts.
One way journaling could help you with stress management is to list out all the fears and concerns you hold. Write things that stress you out on a regular basis and explore what you think will happen if they came true. Figure out how, if your fears became a reality, would they affect your life?
Penning them down in a concise manner can provide massive help in tackling your fears and facing them head-on.
Challenge Your Worries and Fears
When you are done writing your concerns and fears, challenge your assumptions about them.
Be your own critic and argue with yourself on the subject. Call into question the authenticity of your distress by looking at all the situations from different angles.
“How likely is something to happen?”
“How do you know what the outcome will be? Has something like that happened before?”
“Are you sure you won’t be able to overcome it once it happens?”
Ask yourself questions like these and answer them truthfully.
Challenging your fears can help you view them from a different angle and see them with a fresh perspective. It will reassure you that most of the fears you harbor in your mind are superficial. Even if they are not, you can surely overcome them if you prepare for them beforehand.
Write Your Accomplishments
Another step you can take towards helping your anxiety and depression is to make a list of all your day’s accomplishments. They don’t have to be big, monumental victories. They can be small, positive actions that you practiced throughout the day that made your or someone else’s life better in one way or another.
Think of all the ways you made yourself proud through the day and jot them down in your journal.
Celebrate your accomplishments because no matter how big or small they are, at the end of the day, they are yours!
Describe Your Perfect Day
What would your ideal day look like?
What would you do if you could spend one day of your life exactly the way you wanted it to? A day you could spend doing only the things you loved and nothing else?
Think and make a list of all the things you would do if you had free reign over your day from the time you woke up to the time you went to bed.
After you’re done listing, choose one item on the list and incorporate it into your day.
Gradually, try to include all the things from your list into your life from time to time.
Write a Positive Difference You Made in Someone’s Life
Often times, we underestimate the joy helping others could bring in our own lives.
The real source of happiness is not intrinsic pleasure. It largely depends on our actions and how they affect other humans.
Write about how you made a positive difference in someone else’s life and how it changed their life for the better.
Note down how helping someone else has made you into a happier person.
Plan ahead and think of the things you can do in the future to help your community or just other people in general. Pen those things down and make a mindful effort to work towards them.
The Bottom Line
As simple as journaling is, it is, however, one of the best tools you can employ to help you with your anxiety and depression issues.
The best part is, it is easy to pick up and get cracking on. It does not require you to go out and spend large sums of money. All it asks for is a few minutes daily of honest contemplation on your part.
However, if you feel your problems require more help, it is important to seek for professional help such as counseling while continuing your journaling exercises.
