Journaling for Overthinking: 3 Steps to Calm Your Mind
Ivy Griffin
Do you find yourself replaying the same conversation in your head over and over again? Wondering whether you said the right thing?
Whether the other person got your point?
Whether you made a total fool of yourself?
You keep rehashing every detail in your head, and you feel plagued with the thought that you really messed up.
You’re not alone. Many, many people struggle with how to reign in their thoughts, and this is especially true for highly sensitive people (hsps). You feel like you’re running a race, and you’re exhausted, but you never seem to get anywhere new. Your brain won’t stop, no matter how much you wish it would.
All this thinking makes you feel like you’re at war with yourself, and it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Journaling can shine a light on the path forward.
3 Steps to Use Journaling for Overthinking
I’ve broken the basics of journaling for overthinking into three parts:
Why journaling helps break the thought spiral
Common pitfalls to avoid when journaling
Simple structures you can use to calm your mind
Step 1: Understanding Why Journaling Helps Break the Thought Spiral
When you ruminate (i.e. think about the same thing repeatedly), it’s usually a very internal process of you alone with your thoughts, spiraling around like a tornado in your head. Writing down your thoughts brings calm to the storm in 2 important ways:
Identifying emotions → Naming a feeling can decrease its intensity.
Externalizing thoughts → Putting words on paper creates distance, so it’s easier to reframe and be objective.
Identifying emotions
Journaling allows you to identify the emotions you’re feeling. Naming a feeling brings clarity and can decrease the intensity of the feeling.
Externalizing thoughts
Writing it down also helps to externalize everything that’s happening inside of you, which creates some distance between yourself and your experience. It becomes easier to be objective and reframe your thoughts when they are written down.
Research backs this up. A comprehensive review of 31 studies (Guo, 2023) found that expressive writing significantly reduced anxiety, depression, and stress, especially when done in short intervals of 1–3 days between sessions.
Additionally, writing was noted to increase self-understanding, improve our ability to work through emotions and thus better manage stress, and reframe and integrate difficult experiences into our life story (Guo, 2023, p. 274).
That’s pretty powerful.
In my more than 15 years as a psychotherapist, I have witnessed the healing power of clients who can process and share a coherent story of their life challenges.
The trauma narrative in journaling
Having a clear narrative is a key component to healing from trauma. And, it’s a really helpful coping tool for dealing with the ups and downs of life. Being able to name your feelings, identify your thoughts, and describe your internal experience are important factors for psychological health and well-being.
These skills come into play whether you’re working through trauma or trying to manage your ruminative thoughts about your relationship.
Step 2: Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Journaling
What if journaling hasn’t worked for me in the past?
If journaling ever feels overwhelming or increases your anxiety, know that you don’t have to navigate it alone. Thrive Therapy & Counseling offers a safe, supportive space to help you process your thoughts and find healthier ways to cope. Connect with us here.
Maybe you’ve tried journaling before and it didn’t seem to help. Or you don’t see how writing could ease anxiety. That’s fair. Journaling isn’t magic—but it can work if you know what to expect.
I recommend approaching new tools like a science experiment - test it out. Give it a fair try over a period of a month. (Research shows that we’re more likely to stick with a habit if we do it for 21-28 days.)
Notice how you feel before and after. If it doesn’t help, move on and test out a different tool.
If you decide to give journaling a try, here are a couple of fallacies where I see people get stuck or give up too soon.
Two common traps:
Expecting to feel better after just a few entries.
Getting stuck in the same spiral of overthinking on paper.
You journal a few times, and you expect to feel better already. You get lost in the spiral of overthinking.
Avoid Trap 1: Practice the skill of perseverance through journaling and build new neural pathways
I wish there was a magic bullet for anxiety and overthinking. I really do. But, the reality is more complicated.
Mental health is like physical health - it requires ongoing practices sustained over time. Most of us don’t expect to go to the gym twice and be strong and fit for the rest of our lives. Instead, we know that we need to establish a routine, be consistent, and build up our strength and endurance over time.
When we implement a new coping skill like journaling, we create a new neural pathway in our brain. If we only use the skill a couple of times, that pathway doesn’t become stronger, and instead our brains “prune” it away and return to using the old, familiar routes.
However, if we continue to practice that skill over time, that neural pathway becomes stronger, better developed, and easier to return to in the future. The more we practice, the easier it becomes.
Avoid Trap 2: What if your writing just repeats the same thought?
If this happens, the rumination in your head has made it onto the page. It can be ok to let all these repetitive thoughts flow into your writing for a little while, but don’t let your journaling end here.
For some folks, if you continue writing, your thinking will naturally begin to shift, and you’ll feel a release. Our brains are wired to be problem-solvers, so if your brain works toward resolution on its own, awesome, follow that path!
But, if you get stuck and your thoughts are spiraling on the same issue, try this:
Set a timer for 20 minutes.
Allow yourself to ruminate, and write the same thing repeatedly if you need to.
When the timer goes off, close your journal or computer, put your phone away, and stretch. You’re done with the spiral for today.
When the thoughts return, tell them you’ll focus on them tomorrow during your next 20‑minute writing session.
This takes practice, and you may have to repeatedly shift your focus away from these thoughts. But, creating this structure gives your overthinking brain space to do its thing without taking over your life, and it can help you feel less anxious and stressed over time.
Want some other structure to add to your writing? Here’s a quick 5 minute journal exercise for calming your mind:
Step 3: Simple Structures to Calm Your Mind
Observe Describe Participate skill from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Observe:
Notice your 5 senses: smell, sight, taste, touch, sound. Observe your internal state of thoughts, body sensations, feelings and urges. Watch these thoughts, feelings, sensations come and go like waves in the ocean or clouds in the sky.
Describe:
I see____________________
I smell __________________
I hear ___________________
I taste ___________________
I touch __________________
I’m having the thought that __________________________________________
I’m having the feeling of ____________________________________________
My body is (Example: tense, relaxed, aching, loose) _________________________
Participate:
What is your intention, or what will you do next? Does that differ from before this exercise? If so, how?
Understand that it takes time
Research shows journaling can reduce anxiety and stress, and therapy experience confirms that creating a coherent narrative is powerful for healing. But like exercise, it requires consistency. With time, the habit strengthens neural pathways that make it easier to return to healthier thought patterns.
If journaling ever feels overwhelming or increases your anxiety, know that you don’t have to navigate it alone. Thrive Therapy & Counseling offers a safe, supportive space to help you process your thoughts and find healthier ways to cope. Connect with us here.
So much of overthinking is about feeling trapped in spirals. Journaling offers a way to step off the hamster wheel and find clarity.
Maybe your first step is to try the 20-minute timer method.
Maybe it’s testing the DBT “Observe, Describe, Participate” exercise.
Or maybe it’s simply committing to one month of journaling as an experiment.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but journaling might just be the practice that helps you calm the storm in your mind.
Reference:
Guo, L. (2023). The delayed, durable effect of expressive writing on depression, anxiety and stress: A meta‐analytic review of studies with long‐term follow‐ups. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(1), 272–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjc.12408