The journal routine that improved my anxiety & rewired my brain

I felt significantly less anxious this year, and I owe it all to my journaling routine.

I’m a big journaling enthusiast and have been journaling for years. But before this year, I didn’t have much of a routine at all.

I just journaled when the urge came and didn’t think much of it outside of that. But now, it’s a solid ritual for me and I’m pretty sure my life is better because of it. I talked about it in my first official YouTube video for those who’d rather listen than read.

**Fun fact: after I recorded and watched the video a million times, my TikTok feed started showing videos about agoraphobia. When I looked into the symptoms, it overlapped almost completely with what I experienced leading me to this journaling routine. If any psychology girlies or anyone dealing with (or has overcome) agoraphobia comes across this and has any input for managing it, I’d love to hear about it. I’m also curious if this journaling routine can help with the symptoms for others since it helped me.

Now about the routine — I journal at least twice a day. Up until I started this routine, my days felt like they were just full of fear, anxiety, and dread so I designed this routine to counter that perception. It’s helped so much! And the routine is not time-consuming at all, though it might seem that way when you’re reading this. It takes maybe 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at night.

Morning Journaling Routine: Every morning, whether on pen and paper or in the notes app of my phone, I dump every thought from my mind until it’s empty. It helps me not carry unprocessed thoughts throughout the day, which would usually make me feel anxious and scattered. I also have a theory that when I have a bunch of unprocessed thoughts/feelings floating around, my brain wants to anchor on what’s most impactful and it’s usually something heavy and stressful. So, the brain-dump morning journal session gets me a good head start to an anxiety-free day.

Night-time Journaling Routine: Every night I recap my day based on 6 categories (it was 5 at the time of recording a few weeks ago, but I recently added the 4th category). For each point, I keep it as brief as possible rather than long sentences full of detail. Why these 6 categories? Well, for me they each served the purpose of countering a specific aspect of my perspective on day-to-day life.

1. Things that brought me joy or were glimmers of love — simply stated, this category is to help highlight moments/things in my life that bring me joy or make me feel loved. After a few months, I noticed the things I listed were always there, I just didn’t notice them before. Shifting my energy this way just means less energy towards anxiousness, fear, etc. Plus everyone can use a bit more love and joy.

2. Moments I feel proud of, or moments where I showed bravery — this category is the main counter to anxiety, for me. Highlighting the bravery I show every day and finding things to be proud of seems to have made me stronger in future anxious moments. And even led to a lot less anxious moments overall. Recapping this every night led to me having a long list of evidence for why I’m capable of doing whatever it is I’m feeling afraid of (giving a presentation, leaving the house, speaking up for myself, etc). The best example is when I built the courage to take a walk, which helped build the courage to drive, which then built the courage to travel by plane again, etc. Maybe I’ll talk about my experience with agoraphobia one day to give more context, but in a nutshell, I was housebound due to extreme anxiety for a long time (shout out to Instacart and having a work-from-home job).

3. Moments where I showed someone grace, or when someone showed me grace — I noticed I was being extra hard on myself and the people around me. Recapping this every night forced me to find ways to show myself and everyone else more grace. I realized I needed this when I’d be overwhelmed with shame during and after anxiety attacks, which honestly just makes the next one even more dreadful. Being so hard on myself led me to project that shame on people close to me by being extra hard on them. We’re all going through our things.

4. The most fun I’ve had that day — I recently added this one because I struggle with allowing myself to feel pleasure. When I get “free time” I only think about what I can do to feel productive. But since adding this, it almost kind of forces me to find something fun to do so I have something to list in the recap. It only took 3 days in a row of having nothing fun to add for me to actively start seeking something fun to do every day. Life changing.

5. My favorite part of the day — I got this from Emilie the brain training specialist in this video talking about the negativity bias and using installation to counter it, along with other tips for experiencing a better quality of life. Her other videos helped me design the rest of these categories too. Knowing that I’m going to recap my favorite part of the day every night leads me to move throughout my day looking for my favorite moment. It flipped the hyperfocus switch to positive mode. Sure the negative moments are still there, but it’s not what I go to sleep thinking about.

6. Things I’m looking forward to — simply stated, this category helps anchor me in the feeling of positive anticipation, which is the perfect counter to dread. My days used to be full of dreading work, dreading going to sleep because I had to wake up to work, dreading doing anything I found anxiety-inducing, etc. Before trying this routine, I noticed how I never focused on what I had to look forward to in a positive way. From looking forward to seeing friends, going somewhere specifically fun for me, to watching the next episode of a good show, etc. I was ignoring all of those moments of positive anticipation (which feels sooo good btw) and hyperfocused on dread instead.

The overachiever in me can’t handle leaving something incomplete, so I’m forced to find something that fits every category every single night. It’s been so life-changing that I made a video talking about it. I just need people to know okay! Something that takes 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at night radically changed my life, so I’d honestly feel selfish if I never shared it.

It look a while to make this routine stick, but now whenever I reach for my phone to set my alarm, I remember to do this list. I even crave it some nights to make sure I capture memories.

I didn’t realize until my birthday recently that I’d have so many amazing memories to reminisce at the end of the year. There’ll be another video soon about how that went for me soon (hopefully). As a sneak peak, I made a cute little magazine recapping my year based on all the things the journal routine helped me capture, and it was ALOT.

If you got this far, I really appreciate your support! I have so much to say, just little energy to say it. I’m working on establishing a schedule that works for my energy levels. In the meantime, check out lavendulaonline.com where you’ll see other things I’m working on (I just uploaded my first Youtube video and recently added a Ko-fi link). Until next time ❤.