If work is putting you on edge, or maybe there’s a big event coming up, there is an extremely cathartic exercise that you can do to relax, and it’s something you may have done back in high school. Writing your thoughts in a journal can soothe the soul. So grab a pen and get all those stressful thoughts out and down on paper.
DE-STRESS JOURNAL
Click here to get the journals!
[Tools Needed]
- You
- A journal
- A pen
PREPARATION AND USE:
Write about one incident in your recent past that made you feel stressed. Record your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations: Did you feel angry and blame others? Helpless? Resigned to the situation? Did you feel tightness, pain, or tension in your body? If so, where? Record the steps you took to address the stress: Did you light a cigarette? Have a drink? Go outside? Call a friend? Slam doors?
Next, record daily stressful incidents and your reactions for a week. At the end of the week, review the journal and identify your patterns of reaction. Zero in on one or two reactions that you feel are especially harmful to your mental or physical health and that you want to change.
YIELD: Daily session
HOW IT WORKS:
The purpose of this exercise is to recognize how you respond to stress. The way we react to daily hassles becomes ingrained and automatic. The goal isn’t to avoid stress altogether (which would be impossible and not even truly desirable), but to respond in ways that serve you.
Awareness is the first step toward changing unhealthy habits and maximizing the skills that are working for you.
In this giftable mini booklet of The Little Book of Home Remedies, Mind and Body, Barbara H. Seeber and Barbara Brownell Grogan join Dr. Linda White to draw on years of training in the area of natural healing to help you ease your stress and the effects that it has on the body. This handy guide provides remedies and advice for stress, anxiety, fatigue, depression, and more.
Linda B. White, M.D., holds B.S and M.S degrees from Stanford University and an M.D. from the University of California, San Diego. She is the co-author of The Herbal Drugstore and Kids, Herbs, and Health. She served as a medical advisor and contributor to The National Geographic Guide to Medicinal Herbs. Since 2004, Dr. White has been on faculty at Metropolitan State, Denver, in the Integrative Therapeutic Practices Program in the Health Professions Department.
National Geographic editor and award-winning feature writer Barbara H. Seeber is a 30-year veteran of the publishing world. As an editor for National Geographic Books, she helped launch a number of titles in National Geographic’s line of health books.
Barbara Brownell Grogan, former editor in chief at National Geographic Books, is also a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, in New York City. At National Geographic she grew the health line of publications, including Desk Reference to Nature’s Medicine, Body: The Complete Human, Brainworks, andGuide to Medicinal Herbs, and has worked with health and well-being experts including Joe and Terry Graedon, of The People’s Pharmacy, among others.
Body Mind Beauty Health 