Hi Catra,

Panic attacks suck; I've had those too.

I think journaling is a really good modality for stress relief, because it helps you objectify your experiences on paper in a way that creates separation between "you" and what you're feeling. In a way, you're already doing a form of personal journaling by your posts here at Neurotalk.

It also helps to have a tangible record of what's been going on from an awareness/memory standpoint. It's easy to forget lots of what happened yesterday, let alone two weeks or a month or a year ago!

I use "Notes" feature on my iPhone and keep a daily log of what's going on and how I feel about it. 2x a day I take 5 minutes to update it.

Then once a week, I take a half hour to reread my notes and re-experience the highlights of each of the past seven days, one by one in linear order. Then the next 30 minutes I pull out a pen and give myself credit where it's due and recognizing and forgiving where it's not. This gives me the overall "vibe" of where my life is and the highlights the emotional issues I'm working with. From there I just plot out 2-3 things I want to focus on over the next seven days, and keep those in mind when I make my iPhone notes. Rinse and repeat

I've found that TONS of insights hit me out of nowhere while journaling!