But how can you identify the real perpetrators of your emotional sanity? A helpful and effective way of understanding what activities cause anxiety is by creating and actively maintaining a stress journal. In essence, a stress journal allows you to accurately keep track of what activities are connected to the particular emotions you feel, and how easily you cope with these situations and feelings. In this special journal, a major focus is recording your activities, tasks, goals, situations, and environments that you find yourself in throughout the day, much like a normal journal. But most importantly, in a stress journal you also record all thoughts, emotions, and feelings that you feel as the day progresses. Use the easy-to-use stress journal template to get started! Not only does this help you achieve the first step of managing stress by identifying stressors, but it also allows you to evaluate your current coping mechanisms for stress, or lack thereof. Either way, the journal will assist you in continuing onto the next steps in the stress management process.