Journaling: A Perfect Way to Relieve Stress and Anxiety

Inside: We all deal with stress and anxiety! Learn some ways, especially how to journal as possible ways to relieve stress and anxiety.

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Is your to-do list long?

Do you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day?

Are relaxing and unwinding hard for you to do?

Indeed, stress is common to all of us.

Even with the advance of technology at our fingertips, many of us live in isolation.

To tell the truth, anxiety, stress-related disease, depression, and loneliness are all on the rise.

A recent survey suggested we just aren’t happy being busy and stressed out. Actually, this study is a couple of years old and only 33% of us are happy!

Finding health and wellness happens when we find stress management as a priority in our lives.

Besides, stress will always be a part of life, but learning how we look at stress and how we work through our feelings can make all the difference in living well.

The Loneliness Epidemic

This phenomenon known as the loneliness epidemic exists today.

The fact is, we might spend hours online in Facebook groups or other social media groups, but the truth is we need in real-life relationships too.

I mean, having a community and spending time talking about feelings is super important to mental health.

That being the case, many of us just don’t share how we are feeling, and left to our own devices and thoughts, we can sink down into rabbit holes of greater stress and anxiety.

Maybe we think it’s ok to feel irritable, angry, hopeless, and struggle with sleep issues.

Unless we talk with others, we won’t know that this is not how God made us.

In the Bible, God talks to us about the importance of gathering together as we can make each other better and encourage each other!

(Proverbs 27:17, NLT).

¹⁷ As iron sharpens iron,
    so a friend sharpens a friend.

Joining together with others is a great way to relieve stress and anxiety! (click to tweet)

Relieving Anxiety and Stress By Watching Our Thoughts

Have you ever noticed when you’re anxious that it’s easy to think negatively?

In fact, once we start negative thinking, it sinks us.

Dr. Caroline Leaf, a Christian Cognitive Neuroscientist has shown that we can directly influence the chemicals in our brains by capturing our thoughts and placing them on God’s truth.

If we think negatively in our minds, it will affect our brains with neurotransmitters that have a negative impact on our brains.

As a matter of fact, we can actually change our DNA positively or negatively through our thoughts.

Furthermore, ruminating on the bad in our lives sloshes more ill effects on our bodies and brain parts.

What is more, slowly our life seems hopeless and it appears as if it will never be any different.

In His Word, God tells us to watch what we let into our thoughts.

For this reason, when we focus on the negative, that’s all we can see.

However, when we focus on the positive and Godly things, we can speak life into ourselves and those around us. By learning Truth, we can manage our anxiety (especially through journaling).

(Philippians 4:8, NLT).

⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

(2 Corinthians 10:5, NLT).

⁵ We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

Working through Feelings

Our feelings can be fickle and if we believe them as truth, we will get ourselves into trouble.

Using God’s word to examine our feelings and comparing these feelings with His truth so that we don’t believe lies, is something we should be doing every day.

Therefore, writing down what we are feeling is a great way to see this truth.

Many times, stress and anxiety melt away when we see what we wrote and label it as untruth.

We can’t just let the thoughts in our heads have free reign.

For this reason, catching our thoughts and making them work for us and not against us needs to be a habit that continues each day.

In all honesty, our thoughts determine our feelings which determine our behavior.

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. ~Rick Warren

So catching our thoughts right away needs to be an intentional action.

Our thoughts create life or take away that life. (click to tweet)

Journaling As A Way to Relieve Stress And Anxiety

A few years ago, someone suggested that I try journaling to help with my anxiety. Honestly, it felt like another thing I had to fit into already-filled-to-the-max-day.

I began using journaling and what I noticed was:

My anxious thoughts looked funny on paper.

What I was worried about in my head looked unconvincing on paper.

I could examine the thoughts and line them up with Scripture.

I could ask myself these questions:

• Why am I feeling this way?
• What am I telling myself?
• Does God say this about me?
• What does God say about me?

From there I could compare them to what God said about me. If it didn’t align with God’s word, then I could label it as a lie and read what God said about me.

Eventually, this action didn’t take place only once, but again and again until it became a habit.

As I did this intentionally each day, I realized that many of my thoughts were rooted in lies, and over time, my perspective shifted.

So what this told me is: I wasn’t who I believed myself to be, I could overcome my anxiety, and I could find management for tension and stress.

How to Begin Journaling

If you’re dealing with anxiety, depression, or stress, starting a habit of journaling can be a great way to examine your thoughts and check your feelings.

It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but use the paper to get your feelings out.

Sometimes we might not feel like we have anything to say, but you’d be surprised when you put pen to paper and let yourself write out whatever you’re feeling.

If you need some extra help or on days when nothing is coming to mind, I’ve created some prompts to help you get journaling.

Remember our thoughts are so important to our life. What we think directly influences how we live and how we behave.

It’s the beginning of life, so we need to start being mindful of what our minds are thinking.

Most of the time, it’s your thinking, not your talent, that holds you back. ~Rick Warren

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