Coping With Anxiety Through Journaling

Coping With Anxiety Through Journaling

Mental illness encompasses a wide range of conditions that can have serious effects on mood, thinking and behavior. One of the most common forms of mental illness is anxiety disorders, which can vary in severity and affect 40 million people in the U.S. Depending on how an individual chooses to cope with their anxiety disorder, this mental illness can have a large impact on day-to-day life. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to cope, and depending on the type of anxiety disorder, they may be controlled with medication and/or lifestyle changes. One coping method that has been found to be effective is journaling.

Connecting Through Technology

People who suffer from anxiety struggle with excessive feelings of nervousness and unease that are strong enough to interfere with an individual’s daily activities. Typically, this concern is for imminent events that may have uncertain outcomes, and anxiety is caused by the inability to control them. Anxiety connects to many aspects of life and can be exacerbated by any number of events. While it can be all-consuming, it’s possible to work through anxious feelings by taking time to write down those thoughts and possibly share them with people who understand — which at times, may be easier to find through the internet where people with similar struggles visit the same blogs and sites.

Technology plays a large role in the everyday life of many people in the western world. A characterizing trait of modern society is the ability to be hyper-connected through smartphones and laptops, which allows people from all around the world to communicate through various channels. This is one way to manage mental health by using technology, which can be a wide-reaching resource in which to find support groups and people who understand the crippling effects of anxiety. Journaling through anxiety on blogs where people are looking for others who share their experience can not only be a beneficial way to work through anxious feelings, it can also provide support to others who are looking for solidarity.

If you are interested in starting a blog to help work through anxiety, there are a few things to consider before getting started. Consider who the blog’s intended audience is, and what the overall goal of the blog is, so you can distinguish the direction of your content. Blogs can be very general or very nuanced, but it’s important they have a clear message for people to feel comfortable becoming a part of them. Whether the goal of the blog is to bring people together, or simply a cathartic way to work through feelings, or both, writing a blog geared toward people with anxiety is a good way to work through anxiety-induced stress.

Journaling Through Anxiety

When getting started, take 10 minutes (or however long you’d like) to simply write out your thoughts. Write about the different concerns that are on your mind, taking care not to go around in circles like you would if you were simply thinking in your head. Write in detail about the events that are happening that are causing anxious feelings and what you are worried about. Writing about the tangible events in detail can help you realize that it’s not the events themselves that are stressful, rather the uncertainty of what will happen next. Afterward, go ahead and indulge in the potential outcomes and your concerns for the difficulties these situations may bring and how they could affect you.

It can be easier to distinguish truly hazardous concerns from less likely or severe possibilities once you’ve written them out and can see them for what they are. Take a few minutes to read and think about what you’ve written. If the anxiety is being caused by a situation you are involved in, is there any way to change the circumstances of the situation to make them better? If there isn’t, write about the worst possible outcomes and what the chances are of them occurring. At times, the chances of the worst possible outcomes are slim, and yet, the anxiety causes them to be the only possibility you can focus on. However, anxiety oftentimes assumes people’s reactions, which nobody can ever really predict.

The fearful outcomes that anxiety emphasizes may not actually be as negative as we think they’ll be — they could even be positive or simply experiences that promote personal growth. Connecting with others who share similar experiences can help those who cope with anxiety to remember that. The cyberworld is growing at a rapid pace, filled with an endless number of voices from people who are looking to connect with others through the content they share. Blogging can help individuals connect and can help reduce negative emotions that happen as a result of feeling alone.