You don’t have to be suffering from anxiety symptoms personally in order to know that this is not an easy issue to deal with. However, it doesn’t have to be this way — anxiety can only control your life if you allow it. The key is to view the entire landscape of anxiety with new eyes. A fresher perspective, if you will. The easier way to do that is to track your days, look for patterns, and use your new knowledge to prevent your anxiety symptoms as much as possible. Here’s how to do it the right way.
Keeping a journal is the perfect tool to have a true record of what’s causing you anxiety symptoms to flare up. Documenting your day in full detail may sound overwhelming at first, but it is absolutely essential for a full window into any factors that are triggering the anxiety issues in the first place.
In addition, a journal can remain completely private — many paper-based journals even have locks on them to prevent the casual reader from prying into your most precious details. If paper isn’t your thing, you can also keep a private journal online. Typing out the details of each day is usually faster and it’s easier to search for patterns in behavior.
Develop a routine for writing in your journal. Even if your lifestyle only permits 20 minutes to update your journal, that’s still plenty of time to remember any situations that made you feel tense. Make sure the allotted journal time is consistent; if you’re a morning person, you may want to do this when you first get up.
Overall, the first step in treating an anxiety disorder is to be able to pinpoint exactly what factors are causing the symptoms to manifest in the first place. In the next few posts to come, you’ll discover how to analyze your anxiety journal.