I went to the ER Sunday morning with chest pains, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, and nausea...turns out it was a panic attack. Followed up with my primary care doctor yesterday and one thing he recommended was journaling. I'll be seeing my pain doctor tomorrow and will talk to him about therapy because honestly this past month my stress levels have just been out of control, constant flare ups, and while I am normally good an managing stress I just can't seem to get a grip with all the latest stuff that has been happening and every time I think I'm doing better some little thing sends me off the rails. The constant flare ups and now a panic attack...it's definitely taking a physical toll on me so I need help.

But anyway...do any of you journal and find it helpful? Online or in a notebook? Any recommendations? Obviously if I end up seeing a therapist they will have some advice but I want to start looking into this I think and gather some recommendations. Thanks!

Keeping a journal might give you insight into why these attacks occur, when they have a likelihood of occurring, etc.

I think it's a good idea.

I myself don't do it. But there's lots of ways to journal, like a bullet journal and such.

Good luck!

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!

Thanks for that. I definitely want to dive in more with the journaling as I think it will help me. I've got my first appointment with the psychologist in the pain clinic Wednesday so I will talk to her a bit about it as well.