Tension Diary

Controlling the anxiety sometimes is very difficult. The frustation and anxiety causes you to go in the deep well of uncontrolled emotions and feelings. In order to better control your anxiety or frustration, it is important to understand the sources of your feelings and the signs of danger you experience in your day to daylife. Your therapist will recommend a Tension Diary where you can make a daily record of your most stressful times, least stressful times, and your physical symptoms of tension. We have compied an example of how you can use the tension diary to keep track of all your feelings which make you more anxious and which make you less anxious.

Tension Diary Example

William Barret a 72 year old man retired from his job of 46 years 2 years ago. he had an excellent and successful career in FMCG industry. He lives with his wife of 45 years in Oklahoma in a big house along with his full family of 4 adult children and 15 grandchildren. William has a pretty good and satisfied life. He is getting the best out of all the relationships, be it with wife, children or grandchildren. He started visiting a therapist to help hom out of depression and anxiety he is experiencing since last 6 months. The reason which he gives about this situation is that his father Mr. Barret moved to his house from Mexico after he had a stroke. William's mother died recently leaving the old father behind.

William off late has started following several new hobbies both alone and with his wife to keep him active in retirement. William now has to be a full time caregiver to his father, since his wife is a full time employee in a pharma firm and stays out of home during the day. He specifically reported to the therapist that he feels tremendous tension in responding to these caregiving duties. He explains that his one brother recently died of brain tumour and his only sister lived in Australia with her family.

William iterated to the therapist that his first motive is to be able to reduce his tension and anxiety. The therapist, understanding his desire and condition asked him to fill a Tension Diary for the week. William's Tension Diary from Monday through Wednesday is given below:

Tension Diary

Directions for use: For each day starting from the day 1, rate your average tension score. Mark your least relaxed and most relaxed situations, as well as any physical symptoms that you experience during the onset of the least relaxed moments.

Tension rating:

1 = Least tense you have ever been

10 = Most tense you have even been

	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY
Average Score for the day	6	9	7
Most Tense Score	10	9	8
When & Where?	10:00 am Breakfast	8:00 pm In the Livingroom on phone	1:00 pm sitting in Library
What was the situation?	Wife was frustrated with my father	On the phone with my broker over the housing tax issue.	Calculating personal tax liability.
Physical Signs	Headache, It hurt in the back, tense, quick breathing	Headache and overall tension	Quick breathing, headache
Least Tense Score	2	5	4
When & Where?	11:00 pm restaurant	1:00 pm in the garden	3:00 pm driving the car
What was the situation?	Playing poker with friend	Reading newspaper, but thinking of discussion with broker and financial situation.	Running in erractic directions but stuck in traffic

William during the course of 3 days in the week has experienced variations in his tension levels and anxiety score. This variation is very common.

He noticed that headaches and quick breathing comes as a regular symptoms which appear everyday as a physical sign of high tension and anxiety. This information has helped him recognize danger signals, as well his/her patterns of stressful situations (mood soothers). William also noticed and captured all those activities which gave him pleasure while in stress. These activities helped him to list all those points which helped him to relax and soothe.

Practice the Tension Diary

This is an exercise which we have provided to help you take a note of all the stressful situations and tension moments. Think about the day you had yesterday and complete one entry to become familiar with this form.

Directions: For each day starting from the day 1, rate your average tension score. Mark your least relaxed and most relaxed situations, as well as any physical symptoms that you experience during the onset of the least relaxed moments.

Tension rating:

1 = Least tense you have ever been

10 = Most tense you have even been

	YESTERDAY
Average Score for the day
Most Tense Score
When & Where?
What was the situation?
Physical Signs
Least Tense Score
When & Where?
What was the situation?