Deciding to keep a stress diary will help you gain important insights into how you are reacting to stress. This allows you to better channel your energy into performing properly.You can begin by writing down each day information about the stressful events you are experiencing. Your goal will be to analyze these stressful elements and then try to manage them better.
Here is an example of a day one entry:
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Woke up late. Alarm didn't go off. |
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Took the kids to school in an awful rush, feeling very irritable. |
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Arrived at work without any breakfast, feeling like an android. |
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Short-tempered with co-workers all day. |
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Picked up kids from school and nearly shouted at them. |
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Locked myself in my room. |
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Stayed in my room entire night, sleeping and watching TV, had a bath. |
Your Stress Diary will help you understand:
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What causes your stress in greater detail. |
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The level of stress that you operate at most efficiently. |
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How you react to stress. Are your reactions appropriate and useful? |
When you write your stress diary each day, you will gain valuable insight that will help you manage stress more pro-actively.
In order to better analyze your stress, try to include the following information:
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Date and time of each entry. |
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How do you feel right now? Use a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being miserable and 10 being ecstatic. |
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Record your mood on a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being low and 10 being very happy. |
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Record how effective you feel you are on a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being very ineffective and 10 being highly effective. |
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How stressed out do you feel? On a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being in a Zen state and 10 feeling like you are going crazy. |
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What stress symptom do you feel? |
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How did you handle the stress? |
Analyzing your Stress Diary
Decide to make daily entries into your diary for a reasonable period of time. After a period of about 4 weeks, you should be able to start to see patterns.
Some of your behaviours which are provoked by stress may be repeated on a regular basis. Make a list of those behaviors that you see most often. These will be the stressful elements in your daily life you will want to learn to control first.
Next, try to look at the causes of these obvious stressors. Also, look at how well you managed them on a day-by-day basis. When you can identify areas where you can learn to manage your stress responses better, write them down.
List all of the every day events of your life that cause you stress and list how these events made you feel.
By now you can see the contrast in what events cause you the most stress compared to what events cause you the least. You can now see at what stress level you function best. Your goal will now be to reduce the stress in your life by managing how you deal with stressful situations. You can do this by responding to the stress in your life in a more positive way.
Go to the next step of your guide on how to relieve stress: Powerful Tools For Everyday Stress Reduction
