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I've found journaling on paper to be one of the best morning rituals for calming anxiety. It really is amazing how just writing a few sentences creates a sense

I've found journaling on paper to be one of the best morning rituals for calming anxiety. It really is amazing how just writing a few sentences creates a sense of awareness of what's going on in your head. I also tried bullet journaling as my 'system', but quickly abandoned it. It is great if you're not a compulsive to-do list maker, but if you follow a GTD-like system where you frequently capture, it becomes onerous to answer the question 'what do I do next?' You either have to constantly flip through pages to review your full list, or regularly copy your to-dos to a master list, which becomes quite tedious, especially if you have a long list. What works for me is using org mode as my to-do system, with paper for the brainstorming and planning. I always start with paper, then once I have clarity on what to do, I move it to org.

weavie 10y ago
Interesting. I wonder how useful journaling would be to help combat insomnia. I will give it a go next time I am lying in bed at 2am with my head buzzing..
- mikehollinger 10y ago
  I use sleep cycle as an alarm clock. A few years of sleep data says that (for me) going to bed after working late leads to bad sleep, and going to bed after reading leads to better sleep. Based on this single data point, perhaps try picking up a book when you call it a night?
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    Nothing beats curling up in a warm (well, now that it's winter in the Northern hemisphere anyway) bed with a book when you're calling it a day. It's relaxing. This habit also helps you actually get around to reading for leisure.
    - matwood 10y ago
      Even when I go to bed late, reading a few pages from my current book helps me slow down and get to sleep.
- andai 10y ago
  I have used this successfully this very week, with my worst insomnia yet. A trick i learned is that writing mainly helps me to clarify my thoughts, so i realized i can do that without turning on the light and getting a pen: i can use a voice recorder (on my phone) and whisper into it, like journaling out loud. Hope this helps!
- rand_r 10y ago
  I've been successfully using journaling to fight insomnia for a few months now. What I do is try to simply capture every thought that comes into my head as fast as I can write. At first, my hand can barely keep up with the torrent of thoughts being produced by my mind, but after maybe 5-10 min it slows right down. At some point I feel like I'm actually waiting for thoughts to come up so I can write. Eventually, my mind goes quiet. It's much easier to fall asleep then.
  - themodelplumber 10y ago
    This helped me, too, when I was suffering from insomnia. 700 to 1,000 words was the "sleep like a baby" target range for me. Also, the sooner I could bring myself to write about the really difficult topics, the better.
    - Veen 10y ago
      I too find writing a helpful way to stop thoughts tumbling round in my head so I can sleep. I think it has something to do with silencing the rehearsal loop. http://www.cognitiveatlas.org/concept/rehearsal_loop http://www.cognitiveatlas.org/concept/rehearsal_loop Focusing on a quiet podcast has a similar effect.
  - tra3 10y ago
    You may be interested in http://www.themostdangerouswritingapp.com http://www.themostdangerouswritingapp.com After 5 seconds of inactivity your text goes away. This encourages you to continue typing. It's helped a lot with my fledging journaling habit.
- corobo 10y ago
  It may not work for all of course but my insomnia (undiagnosed, so whatever the sleeplessness actually was if not insomnia) has almost completely gone after I started meditating. Now I don't mean sitting cross legged while chanting "ahhhh" or anything like that, just give your brain an hour or so daily to start but you can probably drop to less after a while (I do it every 2-3 days now). My best guess it's like freeing up some CPU time for garbage collection. With having podcasts, videos, films, computering, etc going almost every waking hour the brain never really gets a chance to filter through all of this stuff so attempts to do so the only quiet moment it gets - right when you're trying to fall asleep. YMMV, Works For Me(tm), etc. Good luck!
- ivan_ah 10y ago
  Do you work on the computer until late? You should consider trying this app that removes the blue hues from your monitor after 9pm: https://justgetflux.com/ https://justgetflux.com/ (Apparently, blue coloured light is a cue our brain uses to know when to wake up—morning light has more blue than evening light)
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    If you are a linux user gtk-redshift does the same thing, I've also found it be very reliable with ATI's binary drivers (though these days I use the open source drivers anyway).
    - gtk40 10y ago
      Flux supports Linux.
      - noir_lord 10y ago
        It does but ime it breaks (or did) on the various ATI/binary combinations and isn't open source. I've had zero issues with gtk-redshift across multiple machines/configs with 1 to 4 screens :).
  - Procrastes 10y ago
    What a neat idea. I'll try it out.
- 6DM 10y ago
  Most people with a lot on their minds do find it easier to have pen and paper bed side. This why they can quickly jot down what's on their mind and leave the burden of remembering and figuring stuff out to tomorrow. I can't find the article about it, but it has helped me in the past. Now I just throw on a nature documentary and a timer to shut the tv off after 30 min. I'm usually fast asleep in 10 minutes. :)
- chillingeffect 10y ago
  hugely :) you don't even have to use the structure of a journal. i've found it helpful, when my head is too full, to simply write down single words reverberating in my head impairing sleep. I did it just last night!
- bduerst 10y ago
  So I moved to paper note taking a month and a half ago, and it's helped with work-anxiety. It's not a cure-all either, the hardest part is changing your habits so that you still open the book to look at what you wrote down.
dood 10y ago
I know someone who found journaling cured severe RSI, when nothing else worked. I learned about this on HN and was skeptical, but lots of people had testified that it helped them, so I passed the recommendation on - amazingly it did work. See The Mindbody Prescription by Sarno.
- BeetleB 10y ago
  I think it will depend on the type of RSI. Both me and a coworker once had horrible RSI. One of the problems (amongst many) that we complained about was that writing with a pen became quite painful. I mean, RSI can be really bad. It affects your quality of life outside of the computer world. Pressing the button on my remote was painful. Pressing the button to change the frequency on my car radio was painful. Essentially, any delicate work was painful.
criddell 10y ago
If it isn't too personal, what's a typical entry in your morning journal? Does it vary or is there a pattern?
- Diederich 10y ago
  Same question; I'm curious enough to hear your feedback, if you're willing to give it, to risk posting this low-content comment. (:
- damontal 10y ago
  not op but it doesn't have to be typical. just keep your hand moving for 10 or 15 minutes even if it's gibberish. something usually will come out.
- themodelplumber 10y ago
  In case it helps, not OP but here is my daily journal template: https://pastebin.com/djyFiZkz https://pastebin.com/djyFiZkz This is not on paper but I do the same thing on paper when I'm away from the computer. On my computer a cron job just pops this into a Dropbox folder as YYYY-MM-DD.md and I edit it from there. There are some neat journaling cues available if you read e.g. "The New Diary" by Tristine Rainer. Like writing in the third person, or just viewing a diary/journal as a place to scribble down work notes and improving on it from there. I probably change my own template every 1-2 months. You'll see on the "schedule" portion that the least productive part of my day is 1-3 p.m., so I encourage a lot of fun and relaxation during that time as a way of releasing anxiety and picking up task momentum. Most of my work in the journal is under the "other" heading, and I don't fill out every heading every day. Most entries just have a score for the day, some notes on why I chose that score, and ideas to improve it, and then a lot of ideas under "Other". Every Friday I do a sort of "information archaeology" thing where I go back over my paper & digital journal entries and round up reusable tips or things I've learned into a "frameworks" folder where I have separate files for things like building websites, coding, preparing for meetings, working with various types of people, possible new hobbies, etc. The recapture of these ideas has been worth quite a lot to me, as it feels like I have a better foothold next time I encounter the problem.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
I find this can calm my anxiety about forgetting something important. Back in the 90's I used a Franklin Day Planner which was pretty awesome but also a bit too prescriptive for me so it was equal parts useful and repulsive :-). But I found I could capture the things I felt were important on paper and worried less about them being lost. That turned into writing into my notebook at night what questions had come up during the day, and what needed doing. And in the morning, reviewing that and picking the top three things on that list to be addressed that day.

weavie 10y ago

Interesting. I wonder how useful journaling would be to help combat insomnia. I will give it a go next time I am lying in bed at 2am with my head buzzing..

mikehollinger 10y ago
I use sleep cycle as an alarm clock. A few years of sleep data says that (for me) going to bed after working late leads to bad sleep, and going to bed after reading leads to better sleep. Based on this single data point, perhaps try picking up a book when you call it a night?
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Nothing beats curling up in a warm (well, now that it's winter in the Northern hemisphere anyway) bed with a book when you're calling it a day. It's relaxing. This habit also helps you actually get around to reading for leisure.
  - matwood 10y ago
    Even when I go to bed late, reading a few pages from my current book helps me slow down and get to sleep.
andai 10y ago
I have used this successfully this very week, with my worst insomnia yet. A trick i learned is that writing mainly helps me to clarify my thoughts, so i realized i can do that without turning on the light and getting a pen: i can use a voice recorder (on my phone) and whisper into it, like journaling out loud. Hope this helps!
rand_r 10y ago
I've been successfully using journaling to fight insomnia for a few months now. What I do is try to simply capture every thought that comes into my head as fast as I can write. At first, my hand can barely keep up with the torrent of thoughts being produced by my mind, but after maybe 5-10 min it slows right down. At some point I feel like I'm actually waiting for thoughts to come up so I can write. Eventually, my mind goes quiet. It's much easier to fall asleep then.
- themodelplumber 10y ago
  This helped me, too, when I was suffering from insomnia. 700 to 1,000 words was the "sleep like a baby" target range for me. Also, the sooner I could bring myself to write about the really difficult topics, the better.
  - Veen 10y ago
    I too find writing a helpful way to stop thoughts tumbling round in my head so I can sleep. I think it has something to do with silencing the rehearsal loop. http://www.cognitiveatlas.org/concept/rehearsal_loop http://www.cognitiveatlas.org/concept/rehearsal_loop Focusing on a quiet podcast has a similar effect.
- tra3 10y ago
  You may be interested in http://www.themostdangerouswritingapp.com http://www.themostdangerouswritingapp.com After 5 seconds of inactivity your text goes away. This encourages you to continue typing. It's helped a lot with my fledging journaling habit.
corobo 10y ago
It may not work for all of course but my insomnia (undiagnosed, so whatever the sleeplessness actually was if not insomnia) has almost completely gone after I started meditating. Now I don't mean sitting cross legged while chanting "ahhhh" or anything like that, just give your brain an hour or so daily to start but you can probably drop to less after a while (I do it every 2-3 days now). My best guess it's like freeing up some CPU time for garbage collection. With having podcasts, videos, films, computering, etc going almost every waking hour the brain never really gets a chance to filter through all of this stuff so attempts to do so the only quiet moment it gets - right when you're trying to fall asleep. YMMV, Works For Me(tm), etc. Good luck!
ivan_ah 10y ago
Do you work on the computer until late? You should consider trying this app that removes the blue hues from your monitor after 9pm: https://justgetflux.com/ https://justgetflux.com/ (Apparently, blue coloured light is a cue our brain uses to know when to wake up—morning light has more blue than evening light)
- noir_lord 10y ago
  If you are a linux user gtk-redshift does the same thing, I've also found it be very reliable with ATI's binary drivers (though these days I use the open source drivers anyway).
  - gtk40 10y ago
    Flux supports Linux.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      It does but ime it breaks (or did) on the various ATI/binary combinations and isn't open source. I've had zero issues with gtk-redshift across multiple machines/configs with 1 to 4 screens :).
- Procrastes 10y ago
  What a neat idea. I'll try it out.
6DM 10y ago
Most people with a lot on their minds do find it easier to have pen and paper bed side. This why they can quickly jot down what's on their mind and leave the burden of remembering and figuring stuff out to tomorrow. I can't find the article about it, but it has helped me in the past. Now I just throw on a nature documentary and a timer to shut the tv off after 30 min. I'm usually fast asleep in 10 minutes. :)
chillingeffect 10y ago
hugely :) you don't even have to use the structure of a journal. i've found it helpful, when my head is too full, to simply write down single words reverberating in my head impairing sleep. I did it just last night!
bduerst 10y ago
So I moved to paper note taking a month and a half ago, and it's helped with work-anxiety. It's not a cure-all either, the hardest part is changing your habits so that you still open the book to look at what you wrote down.

dood 10y ago

I know someone who found journaling cured severe RSI, when nothing else worked. I learned about this on HN and was skeptical, but lots of people had testified that it helped them, so I passed the recommendation on - amazingly it did work. See The Mindbody Prescription by Sarno.

BeetleB 10y ago
I think it will depend on the type of RSI. Both me and a coworker once had horrible RSI. One of the problems (amongst many) that we complained about was that writing with a pen became quite painful. I mean, RSI can be really bad. It affects your quality of life outside of the computer world. Pressing the button on my remote was painful. Pressing the button to change the frequency on my car radio was painful. Essentially, any delicate work was painful.

criddell 10y ago

If it isn't too personal, what's a typical entry in your morning journal? Does it vary or is there a pattern?

Diederich 10y ago
Same question; I'm curious enough to hear your feedback, if you're willing to give it, to risk posting this low-content comment. (:
damontal 10y ago
not op but it doesn't have to be typical. just keep your hand moving for 10 or 15 minutes even if it's gibberish. something usually will come out.
themodelplumber 10y ago
In case it helps, not OP but here is my daily journal template: https://pastebin.com/djyFiZkz https://pastebin.com/djyFiZkz This is not on paper but I do the same thing on paper when I'm away from the computer. On my computer a cron job just pops this into a Dropbox folder as YYYY-MM-DD.md and I edit it from there. There are some neat journaling cues available if you read e.g. "The New Diary" by Tristine Rainer. Like writing in the third person, or just viewing a diary/journal as a place to scribble down work notes and improving on it from there. I probably change my own template every 1-2 months. You'll see on the "schedule" portion that the least productive part of my day is 1-3 p.m., so I encourage a lot of fun and relaxation during that time as a way of releasing anxiety and picking up task momentum. Most of my work in the journal is under the "other" heading, and I don't fill out every heading every day. Most entries just have a score for the day, some notes on why I chose that score, and ideas to improve it, and then a lot of ideas under "Other". Every Friday I do a sort of "information archaeology" thing where I go back over my paper & digital journal entries and round up reusable tips or things I've learned into a "frameworks" folder where I have separate files for things like building websites, coding, preparing for meetings, working with various types of people, possible new hobbies, etc. The recapture of these ideas has been worth quite a lot to me, as it feels like I have a better foothold next time I encounter the problem.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

I find this can calm my anxiety about forgetting something important. Back in the 90's I used a Franklin Day Planner which was pretty awesome but also a bit too prescriptive for me so it was equal parts useful and repulsive :-). But I found I could capture the things I felt were important on paper and worried less about them being lost. That turned into writing into my notebook at night what questions had come up during the day, and what needed doing. And in the morning, reviewing that and picking the top three things on that list to be addressed that day.