How To Start A Stress Diary

Many of us experience stress in some form daily, whether it’s caused by rush-hour traffic, a difficult customers, a large workload, or unpleasant news. However, if stress goes unrecognized, it can impact our efficiency and, even worse, our health.

A Stress Diary can be helpful in monitoring our health, and work life balance. Monitoring and keeping track of your anxiety through this process allows you to identify the causes of short-term stress in your life. Frequently, these stressors may come in and out of our mind, often not getting the attention that they deserve. Check out our article on “Creating More Relaxation In Your Stressful Life.”

Additionally, a Stress Diary can also give you an idea of how you cope with stress, and help you to examine the levels of pressure at which you work best. (After all, a little bit of pressure can be a good thing!) Also, check out our gratitude journal or meditation article which can be a great help in decreasing your stress as well.

In this article, you will learn more about what a Stress Diary is, and the benefits of keeping one. We’ve included a downloadable Stress Diary template for your convenience, so you can document your own experience. We’ve included a completed diary example, as well as a way to analyze your results, to reveal how to use your own Stress Diary for your life.

What Is a Stress Diary?

The idea behind Stress Diaries is that you regularly record information about the stresses you’re experiencing, so that you can analyze and then manage them.

As well as this, Stress Diaries help you to understand:

• The causes of stress in more detail.
• The levels of pressure at which you operate most effectively.
• How you can improve the way you manage stress.

Using the Work Stress Diary Tool

Download the Work Stress Diary below.

Work Stress Diary

To get started, download your free Work Stress Diary.

You can begin by making regular notes in your diary a few times per day (ie. every 3-5 hours), or proceeding a stressful event, and you can document this information as follows:

• The date and time.
• The most current stressful event you’ve experienced.
• Ask yourself how happy you feel right now, assess on a scale of 0 (the most unhappy you’ve ever been) to 10 (the happiest you’ve been). Moreover, write down the emotion you’re feeling. Are you maybe feeling burnout? Find out what’s creating it.
• Identify how effectively you’re working right now (assess, on a scale of 0 to 10). A zero here would indicate complete ineffectiveness, while a 10 would indicate the most effectiveness you have ever attained.
• The cause of the stress (Be sincere and honest about this).

You may also want to log the following:

• Symptoms you were feeling (ie. anger, tightness in your chest, increased heart rate, and sweating;etc.).
• How well you handled the event: did your reaction assist in solving the problem, or did it make things worse?

How to Analyze Your Diary

After maintaining your Stress Diary for a week, start by examining and analyzing it, and taking action:

• First step, review different stressors that you’ve experienced throughout the time you kept your diary. Focus on the most persistent stresses, and the ones that were the most uncomfortable.
• Examine your assessments of their root causes, and your evaluation of how managed the stressful events. Do they focus on the problems that need to be fixed? If so, list these issues.
• Secondly, examine your diary looking at the situations that cause you stress. Make a list of the ways in which you can change these situations to be more positive.
• Lastly, review how you felt when you were under stress, and explore how it impacts your happiness and your effectiveness. Was there a mid level of pressure at which you were happiest and performed best?

You should have a better understanding of what the root causes of your stress are in your life, and you should be able to identify the levels of pressure at which you are happiest.

It should also be clear which types of situation cause you the most stress, and you can now begin to prepare for and manage them.