Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
There’s…a lot to worry about these days.
Coping with worry is such a personal thing. Some of us suffer in silence, some of us talk the ears off of our partners or moms (hi), some of us are not big worriers to begin with (can you teach me your ways?).
For me, worrying is kind of addictive. I don’t mean that I like it, but I think it’s been my “default” state for so long that my brain is comfortable there in the discomfort.
I’m used to playing out worrisome scenarios in my mind in order to make myself feel “prepared” to face them. According to Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist we interviewed on The Career Contessa Podcast, these kinds of spirals happen because we “answer” the negative thoughts we’re currently facing.
For example, if I have a worry pop into my mind and I “answer” it by telling myself the reasons not to worry about it, it will likely pop up again—so that I can get that reassurance. She argues that the way to really deal with the worry is to see it for what it is…and then let it go.
This is, well, easier said than done if, like me, you're prone to overthinking. I try to meditate, exercise, maintain a bedtime routine…the list goes on. And yet—I still find myself caught in those worry spirals.
Table of Contents
- The Benefits of Journaling
- What Is a Worry Journal?
- Reasons to Keep a Worry Journal
- Why You Should Schedule Your Worrying
- How to Start a Worry Journal
- Worry Journal Tips
This year, I’ve decided to take on the advice that has been given to me multiple times—from therapists, parents, and random internet searches: journaling. And not just regular journaling, but worry journaling.
Committing to journaling isn’t big breakthrough advice, but I’ve been hesitant to try it. Maybe you can relate. It feels intimidating (and time-consuming) to commit to writing in a journal every day.
The Benefits of Journaling
Sometimes, I can distract myself enough with work, parenting, cooking, cleaning, or whatever random task I think needs my immediate attention to keep from having to think those not-so-fun thoughts.
It feels tiring to bring up those thoughts that I try hard to tamp down or internally “answer.” Plus, I’ve always questioned how much journaling could actually help.
Turns out, it can help a lot.
A study out of Penn State College of Medicine found that journaling was “associated with decreased mental distress and increased well-being relative to baseline.” It also showed that journaling resulted in “less depressive symptoms and anxiety after one month and greater resilience after the first and second month, relative to usual care.”
The study cites previous medical studies that have shown that journaling can help with physical ailments like autoimmune and inflammatory conditions as well as blood pressure and depressive symptoms.
All of this to say: I’m intrigued by the evidence that something as simple and doable as journaling can genuinely help my mental and physical health. I’ve decided to try it out as one of my self-care goals. Here's how I'm going about it.
What Is a Worry Journal?
At its most basic level, a worry journal, or worry diary, is a place for you to record your worries. It may be a physical journal or notepad, a voice or notes memo on your phone, a Google Doc that you quickly open to jot down your thoughts, or a handful of scrap paper or sticky notes.
With worry journaling, the “why” matters a lot more here than the “what.” It’s just a place for you to take those worries that spiral in your mind and put them somewhere physical.
Reasons to Keep a Worry Journal
In addition to the benefits that the study from Penn State College of Medicine found, there are other ways in which journaling can benefit us. Regular journaling has been associated with things like better sleep, lowered anxiety levels, and a sense of “control” that we may all feel we’re lacking right now.
Here are a few of the ways that worry journaling can help.
1. It can help stop those negative thought spirals.
I mentioned it earlier, but negative thought spirals are the pits. Seriously, if you’ve experienced this, you know how all-consuming it can be. To Dr. Saltz's point, “answering” the negative thoughts can keep them coming.
And suppressing them can also make them happen even more. However, by just “looking” at the worry and letting it pass by without engaging with it, you can help disrupt those thought patterns. Sooner or later, your mind just might reframe how it looks at worries overall.
Worry journaling is beneficial in this context because it offers a kind of “relief” feeling that “answering” the thought offers: you can feel like you’ve done something about the worry without having to calm yourself down or talk to yourself about the same worry over and over and over again.
By simply writing it down, you’re acknowledging that it’s there. You can acknowledge it—there in your worry journal—without giving the thought so much brain power that it becomes overbearing.
2. It can help with sleep.
Most of us have probably employed the “write it down before you go to sleep” trick when we have a lot on our plates. If you find yourself running through a seemingly endless to-do list before your head hits the pillow, you might try it out for yourself.
Writing things down—even a grocery list or a list of random tasks for the following day—can give you the peace of mind that you won’t forget them.
The same notion applies here but with worries rather than just to-dos. If you find yourself dealing with worries that are causing insomnia, try putting those worries onto paper a few hours before bed.
Most sources I found recommended roughly three hours (or more) before you go to sleep. If you do it too close to your bedtime, it may defeat the purpose in that you may focus on those worries and rile yourself up before bed. It’s best to give yourself some time between writing down your worries and sleeping so that you can get a better night's sleep.
This practice allows you to put the worries somewhere so that you can come back to them later, and hopefully focus less on them when it’s time for your body—and mind—to rest.
3. It can lower stress.
There are medical studies that show journaling can mitigate some of the physical symptoms of stress. There aren’t a ton of them, but even a little evidence is good enough for me here.
There’s no way around it: stress can be rough on your overall health. We all know the physical feelings that too much stress can cause, and they can be rough to go through. While there’s “good” stress—the kind of nerves you feel before an interview or a performance that can be channelled into a healthy outlet—I’m referring to bad, burnout-inducing stress.
The idea here is that momentarily focusing on your worries enough to write them down will alleviate some of that stressful pressure you feel about whatever it is that’s causing them. The hope is that by acknowledging they’re there in a healthier way—in your journal—you can take it out of your normal stress cycle and regain a stronger sense of calm.
4. It can help you determine the root causes of your worries.
I’m certainly not a mental health expert, and this is not medical advice. I can say from experience, however, that the worries I have the most often are the ones that are connected to deeper, more complex roots inside.
By writing these down, they’re simply easier to recognize. You can start to see the patterns of your worries. Maybe they have to do with your overall physical health after you went through a health issue in your childhood.
Maybe they’re centered on work problems after you dealt with a painful layoff. Maybe they involve fears about relationship issues after you suffered from a painful breakup. Maybe they're about financial strains after a difficult few years.
Whatever they are, writing them down provides you with a concrete record of what your brain’s “default” worries tend to be. Knowing this, you can begin to self-examine and excavate what may be causing those worries to begin with.
Seeing it in black and white on paper provides perspective regarding your worry triggers—you can start to see what you’re worrying about more clearly and when…and then, hopefully, why.
5. It can help your meditation practice.
I believe in visualization and mindfulness, but in a less of a “woo-woo” sense and more of a tangible “calm-down-my-anxiety” sense.
That said, it has taken me a long, long time to like practicing meditation. Even now, I have a complicated relationship with it. Often, when I try to meditate, my mind instantly goes to the items I need to get finished or the things that are worrying me.
If you’ve ever used a meditation app, you know that this is normal. They constantly redirect you to your breathing and away from the thought spirals that we all inevitably experience.
I’ve noticed that pinpointing the thoughts that appear most often can help. If you’re concerned about a few specific worries, in other words, noticing those and then writing them down in your worry journal can help you feel like you have a “handle” on them.
It offers you the opportunity to free up some of that brain space. It’s as if you’re telling your brain, “Okay, I promise I won’t forget to worry about that. I’m just not going to worry about it right now while I’m trying to focus on my breathing.”
That brings me to this helpful (if, at first, counterintuitive point): sometimes it really helps to schedule your worrying.
Why You Should Schedule Your Worrying
At first, it may seem strange to “schedule” time to worry, but it can actually be a helpful tool. A worry journal provides the ideal outlet for this, as taking time to write your worries down inherently causes you to carve out some time in your schedule to focus on your worries.
Instead of lying in bed and losing sleep from catastrophizing, it’s helpful to take deliberate time to consider what’s worrying you before you try to relax.
Hear me out: if you don’t “allow” yourself to worry, or if you think that worrying is bad, you’re not only still going to worry, but you may start worrying about worrying. (I’ve been there, and it’s not fun.)
Worry It Out Time
However, if you let yourself have some time to worry ALL YOU WANT and think about all of the what-ifs and write down all the scenarios that you’re anxious will happen, you may feel as if you’ve allowed yourself to “go there.” You’ve done the day’s worrying. It’s no longer necessary to keep playing the scenarios in your mind—they’re now on paper.
This hack simply provides a sense of control for those times you feel out of control with worry or anxiety. If you’ve scheduled it and done it, you know it’s handled. You've taken care of it in an arguably healthier way.
How to Start a Worry Journal
The beauty of a worry journal is that you can do this however and whenever you like.
Your worry journal can be on your phone or a pretty leather journal that you treat yourself to. It can be a voice memo that you record before leaving work for the day. No matter how you record your worries, the concept remains the same: getting them out of your mind and onto your paper (or your device) is the goal. Whatever you feel is the right tool for you is the right tool.
The Different Sections in a Worry Journal
Like the tangible materials you use, determining the best way to actually do the journaling is up to your preferences. Some people prefer to divide their worries into categories, while others prefer a less methodical approach.
If you like having a more “assignment”-oriented style of worry journaling, I find these three categories to be useful. You could designate different pages for these, or keep them all on one page per day. Ultimately, it's your safe space to do with as you like.
To Handle + Plan of Action
This section is for the worries that you know you can actually do something about. Maybe you have a big presentation that’s due in a week, and you haven’t even started.
It feels like it’s looming over you. In this section, you’d write, “Next Week’s Presentation” and then outline a plan of action as to how you’ll begin to work on it. This might mean making a to-do list, or noting the first step you can take to get started. Just writing that down makes you feel more organized and ready to begin. This section might ultimately look like a to-do list of sorts.
Random Worries
This section is the vaguest, and for good reason.
It helps to have a spot to write down those genuine concerns that tend to circulate in times of stress but that you can’t really do anything about. Just having a space to write them down can help you feel a little less consumed by them.
Let It Go
This one is the most difficult section for me, since it encourages you to “let go”—and letting go can be hard. Essentially, here, you’d write down the worries that you tend to have but that you can’t do anything about. For example, you may be worried that you’ll have to cancel next month’s travel plans because of a future illness.
This worry would go in this category, because there’s just nothing you can do about it at the moment. You can’t tell what will happen with travel restrictions or your physical health a month from now. Of course, you can take steps to stay as healthy as possible ahead of your trip, but you still can’t guarantee the future. Write that one here and see if it helps you focus on it less often.
Worry Journal Free Writing
When I was an English teacher, I often assigned my students a free writing exercise at the beginning of class. I’d set a timer and have them write anything. The only rule was that they had to keep writing. I didn’t make them turn in the assignment, so they had total control over their writing.
It was interesting: some students were super uncomfortable with this. They would doodle or write a few sentences over and over. However, most of my students loved it. They’d write and write and write. There was no pressure. No grammar checks. No content judgment. It was just writing for the sake of getting your thoughts out and inspiring creativity. Once the timer stopped, they’d look up sort of dazed and shocked that the time had passed.
All of that to say: it can be scary to free write, but it can be a quite cathartic and effective tool. If you take away the boundaries around your writing, you may give yourself the freedom to truly get those worries and thoughts out and onto the page. There’s something powerful and innately helpful when you do this.
If the categories and “rules” about journaling turn you away from it, consider going the free writing route. It may turn into an effective self-care practice that helps more than you expect it to.
Tips for Worry Journaling
While I was reading about worry journaling, I saw a few tips over and over again in various sources. Below, I’ve outlined some of the best practices to follow if you try it out yourself.
- Journal a few hours before bedtime. Doing it right before bed might make you start to focus on your feelings of anxiety before sleeping, which defeats the whole purpose. Most experts say roughly three hours before sleep is fine.
- Make it a relaxing routine. We all have limited time, so just commit to a few minutes a day at first. Have some tea, turn on soothing music, and get to worrying and writing. You’ll come to look forward to it if you make journaling a ritual you enjoy.
- Don’t judge yourself or your worries. Your worry journal is the place to get it all out—not to make yourself feel bad for feeling uncomfortable emotions.
- Use prompts to help. If journaling feels a little unnatural for you, try using journal prompts to get your pen moving.
- Make it a habit. If you do this every day or at least regularly, you’re more likely to reap the benefits of it. Try it out for two weeks and see if you find it helpful. Like everything else in life that’s good for us (e.g., exercise and sleep), consistency is key.
