Using Expressive Writing for Stress
Understanding Stress and Its Impact
What is Stress?
Stress can be a tricky concept because it straddles both psychological and physical realms. At its core, stress can be viewed as the balance between the demands placed upon us and the resources we have to manage those demands.
Stress is not always bad. There’s an optimal level that can keep us engaged and invigorated.”
Donna Bottomley
However, when stress surpasses our ability to cope, it tends to tip the scale, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed.
Activation Levels
Imagine a gauge for how activated you feel, ranging from completely flat to hyper. This line, running from top to bottom, helps in identifying your current state of activation.
- Flat is when you feel low on energy and motivation, perhaps even indifferent.
- Hyper can manifest as restlessness, anxiety, or an adrenaline rush.
Understanding where you are in any given moment can give you information on how much ‘head-room’ you have right now.
Stress vs. Burnout
Though often used interchangeably, stress and burnout are different. Stress is an activated state, where you are somewhere on the dial from green to red, whereas burnout is when you have gone beyond overwhelm or have been tolerating a consistent level of high activation for too long. It is when your system is exhausted from chronic activation. It can feel like a dimming of all the lights—it is when stress leads to exhaustion, withdrawal, and/or a feeling of defeat.
How to Pinpoint Your Stress
You could visualise the dial (above), or use the ‘Feeling Wheel’ ladder (below) to plot where you are 0 – 10 right now in terms of activation or flatness.
Start by scoring your activation level (top to bottom) between 0 – 10, and then notice if the feeling you currently have is pleasant or unpleasant. Plot where you are. The more you do this the more information you will start to have about how you feel in any particular moment. From here you can then start to see patterns emerging.
Using expressive writing to move through stress
Here is a quick guide to using expressive writing for untangling a feeling of stress. Expressive writing can be a powerful tool for offloading and processing how we feel and helping us gain clarity.
Step 1: The Offloading Phase
This initial seven-minute writing session is all about letting it out—unfiltered and raw.
Here are some tips:
Step 2: Check-in and breathe
After the offloading session, take a moment to check-in with yourself, notice your posture, and breathe slowly in and out for 30 seconds before proceeding to the next session. This helps to balance our nervous system if we have been writing about something activating.
Step 3: The Processing Phase
Now set your timer for another 7 minutes. This session is where you will be ‘processing’ what you have offloaded.
Actions and Intentions: You might want to note down any actions that you want to take, or intentions that you want to set, if this issue shows up again for you.
Before and After: Plotting Your Change
You could plot how you feel at the beginning and end of the writing session, using the feeling wheel above, to give you a sense of whether how you feel has changed.
You can also continue writing past the 7 minutes if you feel you have more to process. But do give yourself a distinct start and end point to the session, rather than keeping it open-ended.
These sessions of expressive writing can be a way to recalibrate before a new week begins. Sometimes, recognising that our stress is part of preparing for what lies ahead, and isn’t a bad thing, can alter how we perceive and process these feelings of activation.
Final Thoughts
If you find it helpful, why not try a weekly expressive writing practice, so that you can have a regular offload and process. It is your safe space to write about whatever you want to. In my Online Course I show you how you can do this in combination with CBT strategies for managing how you feel.
