5 great anxiety journals for logging emotions
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How many times has a therapist or friend told you to “journal” when you’re experiencing periods of anxiety and stress? Here’s the thing—they’re right, though it’s not always as easy as picking up a pen and a notebook. Especially when facing difficult mental moments, putting your thoughts down isn’t always easy without a prompt to kickstart the process.
That’s where guided anxiety journals come in.
These wonderful products take the brainstorming out of the project for you, meaning you can read a prompt and quickly respond to it. It takes less brainpower on your part, but you’re still gaining all the benefits of working through a problem on paper—or simply getting the stress out of your brain and into the world.
None of these journals will remove the need for therapy or mental health support, of course. They’re a great tool, but if you’re struggling, please seek outside assistance as soon as possible.
These five anxiety and mindfulness journals offer loads of coping mechanisms for times when life feels overwhelming.
1. My Anxiety Journal: Daily Support for Cultivating Calm and Happiness
For the sake of getting you the best tools as quickly as possible, we’re starting with the very best anxiety journal we tested. This journal is unmatched in terms of the aid it provides at an incredibly low price point.
My Anxiety Journal offers daily check-ins to help navigate anxiety, as well as a weekly roundup to recap it all. It features a great format that encourages everyday use, which effectively tracks your progress and triggers over time. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything this journal offers.
Before you even dive into the daily spreads (which can take between 5-15 minutes to complete depending on how detailed you want to get) this journal tries to help you. The start of the book is full of pages for personal growth, including topics like identifying triggers, creating a safety/survival plan for your hardest moments, setting boundaries, and recognizing anxiety patterns. There’s even a year-long mood tracker for those who love the idea of a bullet journal.
As a future therapist, this is one that I’m sticking on my shelf as a lifelong reference for clients—and for myself. If you stop reading here, know you’re in good hands with this affordable Amazon find.
2. The Anxiety Journal: Exercises to Soothe Stress and Eliminate Anxiety Wherever You Are
About one-third of The Anxiety Journal is actually a journal, and the rest is designed to help you identify where your anxiety actually comes from. That’s great if you’re looking for bite-sized bits to help you understand your thoughts and feelings. But, if you’re looking to dive into the writing part, skip ahead.
The third section of this book is all about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a type of therapy that asks you to take an in-depth look at your thought processes. CBT focuses on rationalizing the present as opposed to deciphering what’s happened in the past. In doing so, CBT questions get to the root of thought patterns and help you identify maladaptive thought processes that may be keeping you stuck in unhealthy routines.
This journal accomplishes that goal well, with pages to identify “core beliefs” and “thinking errors.” However, if you’re looking for a deep dive into CBT, our next featured journal may be an even better option.
3. The Anti-Anxiety Notebook: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Reframe and Reset
Authored by a team of therapists, The Anti-Anxiety Notebook benefited from its share of viral exposure because of how detailed it is. This book is equal parts education and a guided journal. As you write, you’ll learn easy-to-retain tips about anxiety and relaxation.
The Anti-Anxiety Notebook is also designed in a CBT framework and so is each journal page. You’re given a specific section to outline “what is going through your mind” as well as to “challenge your thoughts.” There’s even a section to identify “what thought patterns” you’re recognizing—with a list of offered patterns in case your thoughts are difficult to describe on the spot.
This journal really succeeds in its “check-in questions,” which emphasize deep reflection. They often take you out of that CBT-present mindset and into the past or the future, depending on which question you choose. Some ask you to imagine where you’d like to be over the next six, 12, or 24 months, or to remember a time you failed.
We’d recommend this journal to those seeking depth and a consistent pace of growth.
4. A Year of Mindfulness: A 52-Week Guided Journal to Cultivate Peace and Presence
Depending on how you feel about mindfulness, this one will be hit or miss for your personal needs. It’s fully meditation centered, with different prompts each week. If you’re looking to learn stillness and find peace, it’s a must-buy. But if you’re just looking for a place to relax, this journal may not be the best pick.
For a full year, A Year of Mindfulness leads you through different mindfulness techniques. There’s a list to try each week, with a few lines of reflection to note which ones worked for you. It’s not all sitting still. In week seven you’ll be asked to do something nice for a loved one. Week 15 asks you to “draw a hot bath for yourself.” Week 45 gets further into the body, with ground stretching and planning healthy meals ahead of the next week.
Obviously, this is very different from the other journals on this list that are asking you to identify and confront your anxiety. If you’re someone who isn’t comfortable putting words to what you’re feeling but want to find relief, this is a great place to start. However, we still highly recommend seeing a mental health professional for additional support if your symptoms of anxiety become obviously disruptive.
5. Weathering My Emotions: A Little Journal for Big Feelings
Is this journal technically for kids? Yes. Do we love it? Also, yes!
There’s no denying this picture book is appropriate and fun for anxiety-prone kids and teens struggling to manage anxiety, but we’d argue it’s a great tool if your adult anxiety goes hand in hand with inner child work.
Out of the above list, Weathering My Emotions is the least daunting because it’s designed for children. Prompts are partnered with adorable watercolor designs, like a gratitude journal made of gifts, or a “shame garden” shaped as a greenhouse. There’s a flare of creativity in every prompt that makes each one accessible and not nearly as scary as a daunting CBT page.
What better source of stress management could there be than writing your latest negative emotions in the strike of a lightning bolt? What about stomping in puddles when you feel “unheard, jealous, frustrated, annoyed, grumpy, or offended”? There’s a chance to do all of that on the page, and honestly, the practice is cathartic even in adulthood.
We highly recommend this journal for kids, as it puts some of those harder-to-say feelings into words and validates them through bite-sized education. We also think it’s worth consideration if you’re doing some inner child work, or just want something that’s not so paragraph heavy.
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This article originally appeared on Reviewed: 5 anxiety journals with great journal prompts for mental health
