Every day, all of us experience some type of anxiety. Sometimes this anxiety can be healthy. Other times, not so. Many psychologists, counselors, and therapists recommend using a journal to help process anxiety. So how do journal writing prompts for anxiety actually help you Journaling through anxiety can greatly reduce the pressure delivered by this debilitating emotion. Where descriptions fail, writing can heal. Where conversations drop off, a written account can open the doors to recuperation. In short, keeping a journal can increase our awareness of distress and it can empower us to allow anxiety to come and go as it undoubtedly will.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety comes with many side effects, including:
- Intense fear of impending danger, or a sense of dread
- Feeling weak or tired
- Increased heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure
- Sweating
- Trembling
Anxiety is a normal process of the mind. It happens all the time to everyone who has ever worried about a test, had to wait for doctor’s results, feared for their job, or worse, their life. Anxiety is pent up energy that is ready to be used for fast action. However, as many of us know, fast action isn’t always appropriate. Usually anxiety shows up when we are in limbo: when we are waiting and wondering what is going to happen next.
That is the crippling effect of anxiety; we can’t use it to move forward, so we use it to think forward, think about all the possibilities. And of course, our mind is excruciatingly good at coming up with all the worst possibilities. Worry is a good friend of anxiety. Worry tells us that anxiety is worthwhile and we should listen to what it has to say. Yet, we don’t want to live our lives listening to the same emotions that have consistently caused us to overreact or react in the wrong way. We want to be able to respond to issues in our life uninterrupted by anxiety and worry.
Check out our article on the optimum length of a journal writing session.
How do journal writing prompts for anxiety actually help?
Journaling is a powerful tool. It’s not meant for combating anxiety – I’m not a proponent of that at all and I’ll explain why in a moment – but for sitting with your anxiety. The very act of putting pen to paper can lower your breathing, lower your heart-rate and return your thoughts to a linear flow. After a traumatic event, or perceived threat, we experience a jump in our blood pressure, muscle tension, and thought processes. Over prolonged exposure to the adrenaline, our body wears down. Our immunity and our metabolisms can crash. Moreover, we can become more susceptible to anxiety and more sensitive to stress. But, wait, didn’t I say that anxiety was normal?
That’s why I don’t believe we should try to fight our feelings of distress. After all, if you think about it, it seems pretty counter-intuitive. We think we can struggle our way out of the anxiety, but the struggle leads to more distress. It’s like every time we’ve tried to pour out our troubles to someone and what did they say? Just relax. It’s no big deal.
When someone else tells me to relax, it makes me tense up even more. I’m not being indignant, it’s just a reflex. Therefore, we should handle anxiety with care, we should treat it the way we treat other maladies, with therapy, guidance and time. All of these things are incorporated into a daily writing practice.
Journal writing prompts for anxiety
Begin with a simple question, What is troubling me? Take this question as seriously as you need to in order to be honest with yourself about the root cause of your distress. If you are only reacting to a minor worry, say so. If you are dealing with an ongoing and deeply troubling problem, talk about it in full. There is no correct way to describe our chief complaints, but we need to start with the intention of opening it all up and being honest with ourselves.
Once you can see the trouble laid out in front of you, you can navigate its effects. Think to yourself, How is my life being impacted? What about my relationships? My work? My health? Let your pen run free, but be authentic. Remember that this practice is one of self-awareness. You will probably be the only person to see this journal, and the things you divulge to yourself will impact your future memory of the situation. Being honest and being thorough will enable you to see the big picture of the situation. Often, our worst fears are nowhere near the reality of the result. However, when our anxiety proves to be correct, then we can digest the whole event by writing it down and reflecting on what we’d like to do differently if the chance arises.
With all the impacts of the situation on paper, you can begin the proactive phase. Everyone has their own unique brainstorming process. Sometimes a simple pros and cons table helps for making binary decisions. Mind maps help when making plans or setting goals. If you are goal-oriented, try making a list of specific action steps needed to make significant changes. All of these and many other options exist so we can answer big questions that relate to our anxiety: What can I do about this? What do I want to happen next? What does all of this mean for me?
How does this all tie together?
Let’s look at an example, so you can see this in action. Think of a time in your life when you were late to an important meeting or appointment. These are prime moments when our anxiety starts to take over. As we are rushing to get where we need to go, our mind starts to race with all kinds of assumptions about what might happen if we are late: people will judge us harshly, we will miss out on important information, or, maybe, we will get fired. As I stated earlier, the mind does an excellent job of coming up with worst case scenarios when it needs to fill in the gaps of missing information. However, in reality, what generally happens is nothing so extreme: people might not even notice you were late, you don’t miss out on anything important, and you keep your job.
After this experience, you might sit down with a pen and paper and answer these questions: What was troubling me? How did it impact my life? What can I do about it in the future? This small journaling practice enables us to investigate our anxiety from a stable state of mind. It also shows us the patterns of thought that lead to our anxiety. Psychologists suggest that a mindfulness writing practice, such as journaling, can unpack the patterns of thought that tend to derail us. For many of us, anytime our work ethic is affected, we react negatively. We invest a lot of energy into our work and that means we put ourselves at risk for more panic attacks. When we use journal writing prompts for anxiety and write about extreme strain, pressure, or anxiety we start to realize what we put ourselves through on a daily basis. Only then can we take steps towards resolving the situation and developing healthy patterns of thought. In the case of being late to work, journaling can help us realize how to avoid those situations in the future and how to let go when things are out of our control.
Journaling as a practice of self-care
Writing about these stressful experiences allows us to be gentle on ourselves. Overcoming unhealthy anxiety requires self-compassion. Even in the middle of an anxiety maelstrom, you have not failed just because you feel overwhelmed. There is no failure, only a lesson to be learned and wisdom to be gained. Often anxiety is a symptom of an open and empathetic heart. More often, we are able to be compassionate towards others, yet not towards ourselves. Sometimes when we think about anxiety, we think of it as a weakness or a character flaw. In reality, it is our anxiety that forces us onward. We want to be successful and that can cause extreme stress.
Instead of punishing ourselves for being “anxious people” we should take a moment to write about the motives behind the very actions that make us anxious. For example, take time to answer this question: What are the greatest sources of anxiety for you?
Some of us find work stressful. For others, it might be relationships, fear of failure, worry about the future, school, family engagements, or social status. All along there is an undercurrent in each of us and that’s what you want to explore in your journal. You want to dive into the compelling sense of onus and aspiration that drives you towards your goals. In that space, you’ll find increasing motivation to press on, but also to slow down and reflect on the situation from a different angle.
Regardless of when the anxiety surges, at its essence is a sense of wanting to do more, or be more, or have more. And in this essence is a great power. Remember, anxiety is energy. That’s what emotions are. They are our energy to make decisions and take action based on what we believe will be the most beneficial in that moment. That is the glory of being human, sometimes our actions don’t work out the way we planned, but when we take time to reflect on them, we gain incredible wisdom for the future.
25 Journal Writing Prompts for Anxiety
Here are some journaling questions to help you understand your personal journey through anxiety. Answer one a day, so that you can settle in and respond in full.
- Write about a time when you felt anxious and how you coped with it.
- Describe a place or activity that brings you peace and tranquility.
- Make a list of things you are grateful for in your life.
- Reflect on a past accomplishment that you are proud of.
- Write a letter to your anxiety, expressing your feelings towards it.
- Imagine a perfect day and describe it in detail.
- Make a list of self-care practices that you can do when feeling anxious.
- Write about a person or pet that brings you comfort.
- Reflect on a past challenge that you overcame.
- Write a list of affirmations to remind yourself of your strength and resilience.
- Describe a favorite memory that brings you joy.
- Make a list of things you can do to distract yourself when feeling anxious.
- Reflect on a past failure and what you learned from it.
- Write about a time when you felt truly content and peaceful.
- Make a list of things you can control and things you cannot control.
- Reflect on a past decision that you are proud of.
- Write about a place or activity that makes you feel safe and secure.
- Make a list of things you can do to challenge negative thoughts.
- Reflect on a past experience that taught you something valuable.
- Write about a person or community that supports you.
- Make a list of things you can do to improve your physical and mental well-being.
- Reflect on a past experience that taught you to be more compassionate.
- Write a letter to your future self, expressing your hopes and dreams.
- Make a list of things you can do to improve your self-esteem.
- Reflect on a past experience that taught you to be more resilient.
Final Thoughts
When we allow ourselves to be anxious, the pressure valve releases. Trying to control anxiety is like trying to contain mud in our hand. We know that the more we squeeze, the more mud squelches past our fingers, but if we release our fist, the mud rests easy. Anxiety can arise and we can still rest easy. The power is within our reflection of the situation. We can use these journal writing prompts for anxiety to write about the beginning, the end, and all the little intricacies in between a day that led us to feel anxious. Journaling helps us to understand our anxiety from all angles. It helps us respond to our experiences in a more stable and discerning manner. Writing has been used as a therapy in cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology. It not only alleviates our stress, but it teaches us to be gentle on ourselves and to be open to change. When we stop seeing anxiety as a weakness, we start to see our incredible capabilities, even in the midst of a panic attack. When we start writing about our experience, we discover our wisdom and our power to press on.
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