An anxiety journal example is one completed entry you can copy the shape of: a single anxious episode written down so the facts, the prediction and the next step stay in separate places. Most published examples use a clean trigger — a work message, a cancelled plan. This one has no trigger, which is the harder and more common case.
Below is that entry, written on an ordinary Tuesday when nothing had happened, followed by a note on why each part is there.
The entry
Written at 21:40 on a Tuesday, ten-minute timer, nothing deleted.
What is happening in my body Chest tight, shoulders up near my ears. Been like this since about four. I keep picking up my phone and putting it down without opening anything. Can't settle enough to watch something.
What happened today Nothing I can point at. Work was normal. Two calls, both fine. I did not eat lunch properly. I slept badly on Sunday and Monday. There is an email from the landlord I have not opened since yesterday morning.
What I'm afraid of I keep circling something like: I am behind and I haven't noticed where. That there's a thing I've dropped and it's going to surface. It's not one specific thing. It's more like the feeling of having forgotten something at the airport.
What I actually know right now Nobody has told me anything is wrong. The two calls today were normal. I have not opened the landlord email, so I do not know what it says — the not-knowing is doing a lot of work here. I have been short on sleep for two nights and I did not eat properly today. Last time I felt like this it was a Thursday in June and nothing surfaced.
One thing I'll do next Open the landlord email before bed. Then stop. If it needs a reply, reply tomorrow morning, not tonight.
What each line is doing
The entry opens with the chest and the shoulders because that is the only part not in dispute. When anxiety is diffuse, "what am I anxious about?" has no answer yet, and asking it first usually produces a made-up one — the mind supplies a cause because the body is demanding one. The physical description also carries information: since about four is a time stamp, which turns a formless day into something with edges.
"Nothing I can point at" is allowed to stand. This is the line most people refuse to write, because it feels like a failed entry. It is what lets the rest of the section fill with conditions instead of events — and those conditions come in two kinds. Sleep loss and a missed meal are load: they change how loud everything sounds without being about anything. The unopened email is an open loop, unresolved and therefore free to mean anything. A vague-anxiety entry usually turns up several of each, and only the loops are actionable.
The fear gets written as a sentence, even a clumsy one. I am behind and I haven't noticed where took a few false starts to reach. Diffuse anxiety resists being put into words, which is why the attempt is the work — the airport comparison is doing more than a tidier sentence would. What this section is not: a list of everything that could go wrong. One sentence, then stop; the rumination version keeps generating new candidates.
The evidence section includes the gap as well as the facts — I do not know what it says is written down rather than replaced by reassurance or worst case. The line about June is a data point from earlier entries, the return you only get from keeping a journal over time rather than writing once.
The next step is small enough to do while still anxious. Opening one email is available tonight; "sort out my life" is not. The stopping rule matters as much as the action, because the alternative is opening the email at 21:50 and drafting a reply at midnight in exactly the state that produced the entry.
What changed and what did not
Nothing here proves the anxiety wrong. The chest is probably still tight at 21:55. What changed is the shape of the problem: a formless bad evening became two nights of poor sleep, a missed meal, and one specific unopened email — with one of those addressable in three minutes. The test of an entry is whether the situation is clearer afterwards, not whether you feel better.
Sometimes the clarity is unwelcome. A vague-anxiety entry occasionally surfaces something real you have been avoiding, and then the next step is a conversation, not a calmer evening.
When this format is the wrong one
Skip it if the anxiety is high enough that writing is unreachable — reading your own sentences back can amplify things when you are already at the ceiling, and a state check comes first in that case. Skip it if you wrote a near-identical entry earlier the same day; a second one usually rehearses rather than clarifies.
If the diffuse version keeps recurring — most days, for months, without a clear trigger — that pattern is worth showing to a GP or therapist rather than managing alone with a notebook. The NHS describes persistent, non-specific worry across many situations as a recognisable pattern with treatments behind it. A journal can document it usefully; it is not a substitute for that conversation.
How to write your own version tonight
- Set a ten-minute timer before you write anything.
- Describe the body first: where it sits, and roughly when it started.
- List today's conditions — sleep, food, anything unfinished — without deciding which one is the cause.
- Write the fear as one sentence, however badly it comes out. Stop at one.
- Write what you actually know, including what you do not know yet.
- Pick one action small enough to do tonight, and write the rule for when you stop.
If deciding what to write is itself the obstacle, shorter prompts do the same job with less setup, and the starting guide covers the first-entry problem specifically.
Leaflo asks these questions in order, adapting them to the emotion you name at the start, so a vague evening still produces an entry with the parts separated — and keeps the entries where you can see the pattern later. Make a vague feeling clearer.
