Calming Journal Prompts For Anxious Minds
How journaling can help an anxious mind plus 40 calming journal prompts to get you started.
What Is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a mental health disorder that affects people from all walks of life. It is characterized by excessive and unfounded worry about the future or present events, or by the presence of panic attacks.
Anxiety can be described as a feeling of being afraid, worried, nervous, and agitated. It is often accompanied by physical symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, and headaches. There is no single cause for anxiety and it is not the same for everyone.
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100 Mental Health Journal Prompts PDF Available Here.
Possible Causes Of Anxiety
- Stress from work, school, finances, or from your personal life.
- Experiences from your past.
- Problems with your physical health such as chronic pain.
- Medication that you are taking.
- Prolonged drug use.
- Alcohol addiction.
- Having a family history of anxiety disorder.
- A traumatic event.
- Having a personality that is prone to anxiety.
There are several different anxiety disorders like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), social anxiety, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), and panic disorder.
The anxiety disorder that I suffer from is generalized anxiety disorder which is one of the most common. This form of anxiety is characterized by excessive worry. In order to be diagnosed with GAD you usually need to have suffered from excessive worry for at least 6 months.
I find it hard to explain what anxiety feels like. I can only compare it to permanently balancing on the edge of a cliff. The worry is constant and usually irrational, it can cause a lot of distress. It has an impact on every aspect of your life.
Symptoms of GAD include fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, and problems with sleeping. The condition may leave you feeling excessively restless, nervous, and feel the need to be on guard against imminent danger.
Living with an anxious mind can be hell but there are things you can do to ease the symptoms.
Ways To Relieve An Anxious Mind
When you are feeling anxious it may seem like it’s never going to end but there are ways to help. Here are a few examples of anxiety and stress relief.
Medication – There are several different types of medication your doctor can prescribe depending on the severity of your anxiety and the form it takes. Talk things over with them so you can decide what the best option is for you.
Relaxation – Of course medication isn’t for everyone and there of loads of methods of relaxation you can try. Meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, and breathing exercises have all been shown to help ease anxiety.
CBT – Cognitive behavioural therapy is a treatment that has a lot of success with helping anxiety.
Identify your triggers – Listing the things you worry about and recognising what makes your anxiety worse can help you to identify any changes you can make to reduce worry.
Writing down your thoughts and feelings – Now we come to the reason why you are reading, journaling! There are many ways a daily journaling practice can help with anxious thoughts, find out more below.
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The Benefits Of Journaling For Anxiety
Journaling is a great way to help relieve anxiety. It has been shown to improve moods, and help manage stress and is a great way to express your thoughts and emotions without fear of judgment.
Journaling helps to express feelings and thoughts that may be difficult to verbalize. By listening to your inner dialogue, you can better understand what is going on in your mind learn things about yourself that you might not have been aware of before.
Keeping a journal can help you gain insight into your anxiety and what might be causing it. Journaling gives you a chance to process your feelings and work through your problems as writing everything down will give you a much clearer picture of what is going on.
There are no right or wrongs when it comes to journaling for anxiety although I would recommend keeping your journal with you. This way you can record your thoughts and feelings as soon as your anxiety takes hold.
If you are unsure of how to start here are some calming journal prompts to give you a helping hand.
Before we get to the prompts I just want to tell you a bit about the Let It Go printable journal. As an anxiety sufferer, I used to have a million thoughts going around in my head. There were so many thoughts I couldn’t make sense of any of them. I could never switch off and just be.
That all changed when I discovered journaling. Getting everything out and onto paper using the simple but powerful techniques in this journal really helped to clear my mind.
Is This You?
- You are stressed and overwhelmed. You have a lot of things on your mind, and you don’t know how to let them go.
- Your mind is racing with thoughts about what you need to do, what has happened and what could happen.
- You want to get rid of all the negative thoughts that are preventing you from living your life and achieving your goals.
Use the Let It Go Journal to get clarity of mind and lose that mental clutter. You will be able to focus on the most important things in life.
What if just a few minutes of journaling at night could give you a calm restful sleep?
What if you could go to work with a clear head and focus on the task at hand?
The techniques in this journal are really easy to implement. Imagine being able to focus and enjoy life without all of that mental clutter.
You can check out the journal here.
What You Get:
- 170-Page Printable Journal
- Daily Pages
- Journal Prompts
- No Worries Pages
- Brain Dump Pages
- Random Thoughts Pages
- Rant Pages
- Print out as many pages as you need
This is a journal for your soul. It is jam-packed with straightforward journaling techniques designed to help you calm your mind, find clarity and focus on what matters most to you.
Bring about significant change with the Let It Go Journal. You deserve to let it go and feel good about yourself, it’s so simple so why not start today?
If you hurry and check it out now you can use the code LETGO30 to get a 30% discount.
Calming Journal Prompts For Anxious Minds
- Take some deep breaths and focus on your body. How does it feel? Do you feel relaxed? Do any of your muscles feel tense? Identify the problem areas. Write down what you can do to be more relaxed.
- Think about today? What was good about it? List everything that made you smile.
- What are you most grateful for? Write a list. Who are you most grateful for? How do you show gratitude?
- Do you think you are a positive person? Write 5 positive things about yourself.
- Do you think you are a positive influence on your loved ones? Write down a positive thing you have done for someone close to you.
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100 Mental Health Journal Prompts PDF Available Here.
- When you are feeling low what one thing always makes you feel better. Why do you think that is?
- Write about your ideal day. A day just for you. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you spend time with?
- What has been the biggest cause of your anxiety recently? Why do you think it causes you so much worry? What can you do to overcome it?
- Take time to reflect on your wins this week. Write a list of all your achievements no matter how small. Focus on what is right, not what is wrong.
- What does your dream life look like? Write about it in detail. Where do you want to be in 5 or 10 years from now? What do you want to be doing?
Calming Journal Prompts For Anxious Minds
- Think of something you can’t live without. How does this thing make you feel?
- When do you enjoy yourself the most? When was the last time you enjoyed yourself? What were you doing? Who were you with?
- What has been on your mind today? What have you thought about the most? Is it a positive or a negative thing?
- When was the most calm you have ever felt? What were you doing? Why do you think you felt so calm? What can you do to feel that way again?
- Who do you love to spend time with? If you could spend a whole day with them what would you do and where would you go?
- What important life lessons have you learned? Write them down. Who played a part in this? Are you glad you went through what you did to learn those lessons? Are you grateful for the things that make you wiser?
- Write down all of the things in your life that make you happy. Is there something you don’t have that you think would make you happy? How could you get it?
- Think about a recent challenge in your life? What happened? How did you face and overcome this challenge?
- What makes you laugh? When was the last time you laughed? What happened?
- Write about something that gives you a lot of satisfaction.
- What do you find difficult to talk about? Write it in your journal, get it all down on paper. How do you feel now?
- What is your favourite weather? What do you enjoy about it?
- Is there anything you are angry about. Write about it in detail. Rant away. Do you feel better about it now?
- Write about your favourite childhood memories. What made you happy as a child? Where did you enjoy going? What did you like to do?
- Write a list of calming things to tell yourself when you feel anxious.
- Do you find it easy to forgive yourself? Do you need to work on forgiveness. How would it feel if you could forgive yourself easily?
- What does the word peace mean to you?
- What is something you look forward to? Why do you enjoy it?
- Are you guilty of holding a grudge? Are you able to let go of what you are holding on to? How would that make you feel?
- Do you feel that you do too much? Write a list of things you could say no to so you can have more time for yourself?
Don’t forget to grab your free journaling cheat sheets!
- Who do you find to be a calming influence? Why do you think this is? If you saw someone else was anxious would you be able to be a calming influence for them?
- Do you dwell on your mistakes? Are you able to learn from them?
- What one thing could make your day better right now?
- Do you notice any signs of your anxiety creeping up on you? What could you do to help your anxiety as soon as you notice them?
- Think about your support network. List everyone who is there to help you. When was the last time someone supported you with your anxiety? What happened?
100 Mental Health Journal Prompts PDF Available Here.
- Do you enjoy it when people pay you a compliment? Does it make you feel uncomfortable? Write down in your journal every time someone pays you a compliment.
- Think about how you cope with day to day stress. Could you cope with it better?
- What people and places make you feel safe?
- Are you happy in your job? Do you feel comfortable in your workplace? Could things be improved?
- How do you feel when you think about the future? Does it make you anxious?
I hope you enjoyed these calming journal prompts. Take care of yourself.
