5 Journalling Techniques to Ease Stress with Joy This Spring
- 22 hours ago
- 8 min read
Anna is a journalling coach and wellbeing advocate on a mission to share the transformative power of writing with 100,000 people. Through her company, Writing with Purpose, she helps women navigate life’s challenges and rediscover their joy through creative expression and nature connection, alongside hosting the Writing with Purpose podcast.
April is Stress Awareness Month, and the numbers behind it are not easy reading. But what if the real antidote to stress is not about managing it more efficiently, or thinking about it less, but about actively writing your way towards joy? These five evidence-based journalling techniques for stress use playfulness, laughter, and self-permission to give stress less room in your life.
What stress is costing us
Stress is not a minor inconvenience. According to research by the Mental Health Foundation and YouGov, 74% of UK adults have felt overwhelmed or unable to cope due to stress in the past year. In 2023/24, stress, depression, and anxiety accounted for 54% of all working days lost due to ill health in the UK, according to the Health and Safety Executive. For women specifically, a 2024 survey by Forth With Life and Censuswide found that almost a quarter experience stress every day, with over two-thirds reporting it as a weekly experience.
These statistics represent real people pushing through school runs, performance reviews, company demands, and ageing parents, while silently eroding their own needs.
Why joy is medicine
Joy is not the opposite of stress. But joy is one of stress’s most effective medicines. Research consistently shows that positive emotional experiences, including laughter, play, and genuine pleasure, reduce physiological markers of stress in the body. Cortisol levels drop, breathing slows, and the nervous system shifts.
The problem is that many of us have packed joy away. We stopped playing when we started performing. And somewhere along the way, we lost permission to be a little bit silly.
Journalling gives us a safe space to reach back and seek out fun and laughter. Writing in a journal or speaking into an app won’t fix the source of your stress, but it will actively build the emotional resources that help you carry it differently.
What the science says
Professor James Pennebaker at the University of Texas has spent over 40 years researching expressive writing. His findings show that writing about emotional experiences for just 15 to 20 minutes over three to four sessions measurably improves both psychological and physical health, including reductions in cortisol and improvements in immune function.
A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 studies, published in Family Medicine and Community Health (BMJ), found that journalling reduced anxiety symptoms by an average of 9%.[1] That may not sound dramatic at first, but stress is cumulative. A consistent reduction in anxiety across weeks and months adds up to something meaningful.
You do not need a special notebook, and you do not need to be a writer. All you need is a pen, a few minutes, and the willingness to show up for yourself. For a broader exploration of how journalling benefits high-performing professionals, see 12 Journalling Techniques for High-Performing Professionals.
What stops us from allowing joy
Before we get to the journalling exercises for stress, it is worth mentioning something. Most of the women I work with are intelligent, capable, and deeply self-aware. They know stress is affecting them. They know they need rest. They even know, intellectually, that joy matters. And yet they do not allow it into their lives, at least not regularly.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. There are usually three patterns that get in the way, so see if any of the following resonate with you.
The productivity trap. When your worth has been tied to output for most of your adult life, rest and play can feel like failure. Taking time to do something silly or joyful triggers a voice that says you should be doing something more useful. That voice is not wisdom but a well-worn habit.
Perfectionism about how joy should look. Some people dismiss their own small pleasures because they do not match a curated version of happiness. Ten minutes in the garden does not count as proper self-care, does it? A funny video your friend sent you is not exactly meaningful. But it is. The smallest, most specific moments of joy are often the most restorative precisely because they are ordinary and accessible.
The belief that stress is the price of ambition. Many high-achieving individuals have absorbed a story that struggle is necessary, and that ease means you are not working hard enough. Stress becomes a badge. Unfortunately, joy becomes a reward to be earned later, and later never quite arrives.
Journalling does not dissolve these patterns overnight. But it creates the one thing these patterns rely on you never having: a moment of honest, uninterrupted self-reflection. That is where change tends to begin.
5 journalling techniques for stress and joy
1. The double list
Start here, especially if you are new to journalling or short on time. Create two separate lists: five things that made you laugh this week, and five things that brought you joy or happiness. These are not the same list because something can make you laugh without bringing deep joy. And something can bring subtle, meaningful joy without being funny at all. A cup of tea before the house wakes up. The first blossom on a tree. Ten minutes you had completely to yourself.
The most useful entries tend not to be the big things, such as holidays or promotions. The small, specific details are where real awareness builds. What you notice, you begin to cultivate. Over time, these lists become a map of what genuinely nourishes you, so I encourage you to consider them at least weekly.
They are also a natural entry point into gratitude journalling. Once you complete your lists, read back through them and write one sentence. Start your sentence with, ‘As I read this, what it tells me about myself is.’ That single sentence of reflection is often where the real insight lives. Research by Dr. Robert Emmons at the University of California demonstrates that regular gratitude practice increases well-being, strengthens relationships, and improves physical health, making this deceptively simple exercise more powerful than it first appears.
2. The captured moment
Find a photograph from the past month or year that sparks something: warmth, delight, nostalgia, or even surprise. Set a timer for five minutes and write everything you remember about that moment.
Where were you?
Who was there?
What was said?
What did the atmosphere feel like?
Capture every detail you can, including the ones that feel insignificant. Photographs act as memory anchors. A single image can unlock details you thought you had forgotten, such as conversations, the feeling in a room, or something someone said that made you laugh until you could not breathe. Writing these details preserves them and signals to your brain that this experience mattered.
When we are chronically stressed, we retain negative experiences far more readily than positive ones. This is not a personal failing, it is how the human brain is wired for survival. The Captured Moment technique actively works against that pattern by training your attention back towards what has been good. After writing, add one reflection sentence, ‘What this moment reminds me of is.’ For a deeper look at how reflection and memory-based writing work together, see How to Reflect on Your Year Through Journalling.
3. Childhood joy writing
Before you pick up your pen, take two minutes to close your eyes. Take in a few slow, deep breaths and feel your body relax. Let your mind travel back to a summer's day when you were around eight to ten years old. A long school holiday. A Sunday afternoon that seemed to stretch on forever. You are outside, laughing with family or friends, completely absorbed in what you are doing. Notice where you are. What is beneath your feet? Who is there? What are you playing?
Then open your eyes and write using one of these prompts:
What did that joy feel like in your body, and where did you feel it?
What made that time feel so free?
How could you bring even a small piece of that feeling into your life this week?
This exercise is more powerful than it might first appear. When we reconnect with the qualities we had as children, such as full presence, silliness, curiosity, and the ability to rest without guilt, we are not being naive. We are reclaiming something we genuinely need. Many participants in my workshops are surprised by how much emotion this exercise surfaces, not sadness, but a kind of recognition that those emotions and abilities are still residing inside somewhere.
4. The permission slip
Write yourself a permission slip for something frivolous, silly, or purely for your own pleasure. Not something productive or anything that earns you brownie points with anyone else. Something that is entirely yours.
Begin with: I give myself permission to. You might give yourself permission to spend an entire Sunday afternoon watching absolute nonsense on television without once feeling like you should be doing something more useful. Or to buy the expensive coffee, just because it is Tuesday, and you want it with added syrup. Or to stop apologising for taking up space. Or to laugh loudly and not follow it with an apology for being too much.
Write more than one if you like and read them back. Notice which ones feel genuinely freeing, and which ones still trigger that voice that says you haven't earned it yet. That gap is worth exploring in your next journalling session to see what you might uncover. The act of writing permission down tends to stick far better than a vague intention to rest more or worry less. This is because you have made a commitment to yourself on the page.
5. The dialogue technique
Developed by psychologist Dr. Ira Progoff and built on by Kathleen Adams at the Center for Journal Therapy, the Dialogue technique involves having a written conversation with someone or something, writing both sides of the exchange yourself.
This April, try having a Dialogue with Stress itself. Start by asking whether it is okay to talk, then let the conversation unfold. Write your words first, then Stress's response. It might look like this:
Me: Stress, are you willing to talk with me?
Stress: I have been waiting for you to ask.
Me: Where are you coming from right now?
Stress: From the place where you keep saying yes when you mean no.
Do not think too hard about the responses. Write them as they come. The answers that surface in a Dialogue are often more honest than anything you would arrive at through thinking alone. You are letting something deeper speak because you are bypassing the part of your brain that edits and rationalises.
Once the conversation feels complete, close by thanking Stress. Then read back what you have written and add one final sentence of reflection: ‘As I read this, I notice.’ That sentence is frequently where the real shift begins.
Begin with five minutes
The Stress Management Society's theme for this year's Stress Awareness Month is #BeTheChange. That change does not need to be sweeping or dramatic. It can begin with five minutes, a notebook, and a decision to bring a little more joy into your days.
Spring is an apt moment to start journalling. Everything is returning after a long winter, so let some of it be you.
If you would like support building a journalling practice, these journalling techniques for stress are a starting point that works for your life. Book a Journalling Audit consultation. Together, we can identify the techniques that suit your personality and create something genuinely sustainable.
Read more from Anna Woolliscroft
Anna Woolliscroft, Writing for Wellbeing Specialist
As a certified Journal to the Self Instructor and holder of a Master's in Creative Writing and Wellbeing, Anna guides women in reclaiming their purpose through proven journalling techniques and creative writing strategies. From climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to transitioning her marketing business into meaningful work, Anna has learned that transformation begins with honest self-reflection. Whether through live workshops, on-demand training, self-learning resources, or her podcast featuring therapeutic writing experts, Anna's mission remains clear: to share the life-changing power of intentional writing with 100,000 people over the next decade, helping women move from feeling stuck to living with clarity and confidence.
Reference:
[1] (Sohal et al., 2022)
