A stress diary is a record of when you felt stressed, the event which gave rise to the stress, how you felt stressed, and how you managed it.
Recording short-term stress can give you useful insights into both causes of stress and your pattern of reactions to them. Often our consciousness of stress is fleeting as other more urgent things take over. A stress diary separates out routine stressors from more unusual ones, sharpens the focus and makes a clear analysis of stress factors, and responses to them, possible.
When?
Once an hour or after any incident which is stressful enough for you to feel it is worth noting. Make it a routine part of your note taking.
What to record?
Use the template which you can download below
Date & Time Event: What happened?
Level: Level of stress caused by event 0 = least stress 10 = most stress
Feeling: How did the stress manifest – eg. hands sweating, upset stomach, panic, headache, faster heart rate, anger.
Underlying cause: Is it just this incident in itself that is stressful or is there something about it which has triggered the stress? Is it cumulative for example? Is it reminding you of something else? Try and be as clear as possible about the basic cause.
How managed: How well did you handle the stress? Did you ease the stress or did you make it worse?
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