Drew Burney

It's a little bit of a nuanced story here, right?

Yes.

What do you mean by journaling, I guess, first?

That's the first question you have to ask yourself.

I think you're absolutely right.

It's the thinking about it too much, the way you're thinking about it too much, actually, too, I think matters quite a bit.

So, like, for instance, gratitude journaling, which we covered in the self-help techniques thing, too, it can make you more grateful, sure, especially if you're not a grateful person.

Probably not going to do a whole lot for your anxiety, though.

Free-form expression journaling, where it's just write about whatever.

Again, not very directed.

Probably you just get to ruminating more is what happens with anxiety.

venting like more catharsis we talked about that too that doesn't really work either again just kind of highlights whatever you're anxious about that said okay there is a type of journaling that actually can work the problem with it is usually that is the least likely for anxious people to use okay and or stick with yep okay which is a form of kind of exposure therapy basically so if you're writing about your anxious thoughts you're writing about what you're worried about you're writing about um

There's some evidence to suggest that this will work.

If you do this for 30 minutes a day for three days in a row, there's some evidence that like, hey, this actually helps with your anxiety.

You have to be consistent with it beyond that, though, probably.

Most people with anxiety give up after the first one.

That's another problem that they have with it.

Like even in a very simple online study that they did where it was internet-based, over half the people just gave up on it.

They just didn't even want to do it for more than a day, which 30 minutes a day for three days –

Shouldn't be that bad.