Reduce Inflammatory Stress with Journaling

Learn how to Reduce Inflammatory Stress with Journaling, some different styles of journaling, and how to fit this AIP lifestyle factor easily into your routine.

Though stress is an unavoidable part of life, when unchecked it can lead to the kind of inflammation that triggers chronic conditions like autoimmune disease.

While it’s not possible to fully eliminate stressors from your life, there are some simple outlets to help mitigate the effects of stress on you. Journaling is one of my personal Paleo Autoimmune Protocol lifestyle favorites because it is easy, inexpensive, customizable, and it doesn’t require a lot of training to learn how to do.

Journaling is highly recommended for all forms of mental and emotional health, including your stress levels. Here are ways to keep a journal in order to manage your stress, while keeping inflammation down in the process:

Start a Gratitude Journal

A really good way to start relieving your stress is to keep a gratitude journal. This is not a regular journal where you express all of your feelings and emotions, but rather one where you keep it light and positive.

You’ll use it to focus only on the good things in your life. Try to post in it every day and write only about what you are grateful for.

Even on the worst day, there is at least one thing you can find gratitude for. Perhaps you had a terrible day when your car broke down, you forgot your lunch, and then it was even worse when you got to work because your boss scolded you.

Though, after your shift you got to go home and hug your family. This was the bright moment of your day. That moment is what you want to write down in your gratitude journal.

Write About Your Whole Day

Another way to use journaling for relieving your stress is to “go all in” and write about every single thing that goes on during the day.

For many people, this helps with stress because you no longer feel like you are bottling everything up. It can be a really great way to become more mindful and free yourself of any tension, anger, sadness, and frustration you feel throughout the day.

Write in the journal as much as you need to, whether once at the end of the day, or throughout the day when you are experiencing something difficult, neutral, or joyous.

Bring Your Journal Everywhere With You

It is a good idea to choose a smaller journal that is easy to carry with you wherever you go. This will allow you to write in the journal whenever you need to. (This could even be the notepad app on your phone if you want to keep it super compact!)

There might be a time when you are at work and you just had a run-in with your boss, and you need to write about it. Or you could be in your car, parked and waiting for an appointment that has you nervous, and you want to write down some of your thoughts before you head into the appointment.

It can be really therapeutic to have an on-the-go journal to write in whenever these things come up.

Goals Journal

If some of your stress comes from the overwhelm of the daily tasks you need to get done, then having a goals journal might be what you’re looking for.

This type of journal will include all of the things you want to and need to accomplish, but also go more in-depth by organizing these tasks and breaking them down into digestible steps.

You can create to-do lists for daily, weekly, and monthly tasks to achieve your goals, and keep daily journal entries about your progress.

Bullet Journal

This is becoming a popular type of journal that will help you to keep everything in your life organized in one place.

With a bullet journal, you have a lot of different sections for anything you want to keep track of, from your goals and to-do lists, to appointments, finances, work projects, your health and your anti-inflammatory diet, and anything else.

You’ll use short words, phrases, and symbols instead of long journal entries.

Art Journal

This is probably the most fun journal of all! If you want to be more creative with your journal, you can turn it into an art journal.

With this type of journal, you will not only have your regular journal entries, but you can let your creative spirit decorate it.

You can use a variety of pens, paints, stickers, and other mediums to create collages or pictures on different pages. Some pages are decorated around your journal entries, while others are simply the art you are using to express yourself.

Think of it as a “scrapbook” for your feelings and emotions, and for stress relief.

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Now that You’ve Learned How to Reduce Inflammatory Stress with Journaling, Get Creative With It!

Please know that you should never feel forced to choose just one type of journaling. Also, you shouldn’t feel like you must keep pushing through with a journaling method that you full-heartedly tried and just did not connect with…or flat out just did not enjoy doing.

With so many different methods of journaling to try, I have no doubt that you’ll find one that you truly enjoy, that you’ll look forward to, and that you can easily assimilate into your daily AIP lifestyle routine.

Which style sounds best suited to you, or which journaling method do you already use to naturally decrease your stress?

I’d love to hear. Leave me a comment!