The Stress Log

About this journal

You know you are stressed. You do not know what by.

Ask most people what set them off this week and they will name the last thing that happened. Ask them to look at ninety days of their own notes and they will find something else entirely: a person, a time of day, a Sunday evening, a room.

That is what this is for. Not managing stress. Finding out what is actually causing it, in writing, before you try to fix anything.

Ninety days, one page each

Every day has a page and every page asks four things. A number from one to ten, filled in before you have time to justify it. Where the tension sat, from a short body checklist. What set it off. What helped, if anything did.

That is under two minutes. It has to be, because the days you most need the record are the days you have no patience for a journal.

What is inside

• 90 daily pages, undated, one to a page
• A 1-to-10 scale you mark before you think about it
• A body checklist: jaw, shoulders, chest, stomach, sleep
• Two lines for the trigger and two for what helped
• A ninety-day review that reads back like a report on yourself
• Three short pages on spotting a pattern you would rather not see
• Four lined pages at the back

Who it is for

• Anyone heading toward burnout who wants it written down before it gets worse
• Women carrying work, a household and everyone else's moods
• People in therapy who want something concrete to bring to the session
• Anyone with anxiety who has been told to notice their triggers and was not told how
• Anyone whose doctor asked how often it happens and got a shrug

The number comes first for a reason

Write the number before the explanation. Given a moment, everyone talks themselves down to a five. The first mark is the honest one and it is the one the review uses.

After ninety days the pattern is usually embarrassing in how obvious it is. Almost nobody guesses it correctly at the start.

Questions people ask

Is it dated? No. Start today, miss a day, carry on. There is nothing to fall behind on.

Is this a therapy workbook? No. It has no exercises and no advice. It is a record, and it is designed to be readable by a therapist or a doctor if you want to take it in.

What if the number is the same every day? Then that is the finding, and it is worth knowing. The triggers column is usually where the variation shows up first.

Is it discreet? Yes. Plain cover, nothing on it that explains itself to a colleague walking past your desk.

The details

• 6 x 9 inches, 110 pages, matte cover
• Undated: start today, skip a day without a gap staring at you
• Printed in colour on white paper
• Plain cover that does not announce itself on a desk

Ninety days of finding out what actually sets you off.

This is a personal record and not medical advice.

Also from Mara Linde

Still Here, a ninety-day gratitude journal for carers, and Work, Honestly, twenty-six weeks of finding out where your working life is going.