Journal prompts for anger, grouped by moment

These journal prompts for anger are grouped by the moment you’re in: right after something happens, later that day once you’ve cooled down, looking back over a few weeks, wondering what was underneath, and making things right with someone. Pick one or two that fit where you are. You don’t need to answer all of them, and a line or two per question is plenty.

I wrote these prompts myself. They aren’t evidence-based exercises, no study has tested them, and I’m not a clinician. Journaling for anger covers what the research does and doesn’t say about journaling. Three findings from that research shaped how I put this list together.

Can writing about anger keep it going?

Writing about anger can keep it going when the writing dwells on the event. That’s what one experiment found. In a 2012 experiment, 121 undergraduates recalled a memory that made them angry and then spent 20 minutes on a writing task. Anger held steady in the group told to ruminate analytically on the memory. I take that to mean going over it again and again. The groups told to reappraise it (look at it another way), to distract themselves, or to write about their thoughts with no instruction on handling the emotion all reported less anger afterwards.

It was one experiment with students, and its abstract gives no effect sizes. It found that rumination kept anger where it was, which is a smaller claim than saying it made anger worse.

A 2022 meta-analysis that pooled 230 comparisons found that taking a more distant perspective made emotions less intense, with a moderate effect on average. It covered emotions in general, and its abstract gives no figure for anger alone.

Mood also often dips straight after writing about something upsetting. A 2006 meta-analysis of 146 randomised studies of expressive writing, where people write (or in some studies talk) about difficult experiences, notes that people typically report more negative mood and less positive mood shortly after disclosing traumatic events. It’s citing an earlier review there. It didn’t pool immediate reactions itself.

None of those studies tested prompts like mine. What I take from them is a direction. The prompts here look around the event, at what else was going on and what I expected, or look back at it from a distance. I’ve left out the kind that puts you back inside the argument to replay it.

Prompts for right after it happens

Right after it happens, keep the writing short. Answer one or two of these in a line each and stop there. If a question winds you up further, put the pen down and come back later.

• How angry am I right now, from 0 to 10?
• What would a camera have recorded, in two sentences?
• What is my body doing right now?
• If someone across the room had watched, what would they say happened?
• What do I want to do, and what will I do in the next ten minutes?
• Does anything have to be decided today, or can it wait until I’ve cooled down?

The camera and the person across the room are two ways of stepping back from the scene. In two experiments, taking a distanced view straight after being provoked reduced aggressive thoughts, angry feelings and aggressive behaviour. I could read only the paper’s abstract and published highlights, which give no sample sizes or effect sizes. The task was reflecting on what happened, so the written prompt is my own step.

Prompts for later that day, when you’ve cooled down

Later that day, once the heat has gone out of it, there’s room for longer answers. The first five are the questions Kettle asks once a day. Kettle is the daily anger journal I’m making for iPhone, and it isn’t on the App Store yet. The anger log puts those five on a printable page, and How it works explains each one.

• What did I get frustrated about today?
• How frustrated did I get, from 0 to 10?
• What else was going on?
• What about the circumstances upset or frustrated me?
• How stressed am I in general today?
• What did I expect to happen that didn’t?
• Had I told anyone about that expectation, or had I kept it to myself?
• What would the other person say happened?

Of Kettle’s five, only the first asks what happened. The rest look around it, so I’d answer the first in a sentence or two and give the time to the others.

Prompts for looking for patterns over a few weeks

Looking for patterns means reading old entries, so these prompts need a few weeks of writing behind them. Read back through what you’ve written with two or three of them in mind. Whatever you notice is a lead to check. It doesn’t show that one thing causes another.

• Which people, places or times of day keep turning up?
• On the days I rated highest, what else was going on?
• When my stress number was high, where was my frustration number?
• Which expectations show up more than once?
• What’s on the calmer days that isn’t on the hard ones?
• What bothered me a few weeks ago that I’d barely remember without the entry?
• Is there one situation I could change before it comes round again?

The anger triggers worksheet has space for the situations that keep coming up and for what makes them worse.

Prompts for what might be underneath

The anger iceberg is where these prompts come from. It’s a metaphor: anger is the part that shows, and other things may sit below the waterline. I’m not offering it as evidence, and I’m not claiming anger always hides another feeling. Sometimes the answer is that you were angry and nothing more, and that’s a fine answer. The anger iceberg worksheet walks through the same idea on a page.

• Was I feeling anything else at the same time, such as hurt, worried or embarrassed?
• What did I want from that moment that I didn’t get?
• What mattered to me here? What was I standing up for?
• Was I already tired, hungry, in pain or stretched thin before it started?
• Was this about today, or about something that’s been building?
• What would I have needed to hear right then?

Prompts for making it right with someone

Making it right with someone comes after you’ve cooled down, when you’re deciding whether and how to go back to them. These prompts can help you work out what you want to say now. They can’t tell you whether you owe an apology, and they can’t promise how the other person will take it. They’re for ordinary conflict. If you’re angry because someone is mistreating or frightening you, repair isn’t your job, and Get help lists who to talk to.

• Do I want to repair this, and am I calm enough to try?
• Is there anything I said or did that I’d take back?
• What do I want them to understand about what was going on for me?
• What might it have been like on their side?
• What would I ask for next time, in one sentence?
• Is there a part of this I’m still angry about that needs its own conversation?
• What will I do if the conversation doesn’t go the way I hope?

Prompts to skip

Prompts to skip are the ones that send you back into the event to argue it again. I’d leave these out:

• prompts that have you write the grievance out again in full
• prompts that ask for a list of everything wrong with the other person
• prompts that have you script what you should have said

The reason is the rumination finding above, and I don’t want to stretch it. One student study found that ruminating kept anger where it was. It didn’t find that ruminating made anger worse, and it didn’t test prompts like these.

If you notice an entry turning into the argument written out line by line, stop there and pick a question from the later that day list.

When writing isn’t the right tool

Writing isn’t the right tool every time. If it leaves you more wound up than when you started, stop. Feeling worse straight after is common in expressive writing research, and you still don’t have to push through it.

Take extra care if you tend to brood. In one trial of 90 recently separated adults, people who reported high levels of brooding had more emotional disturbance eight months later when assigned expressive writing than when assigned control writing. Only 73 of the 90 were followed to that point. It’s one trial, anger wasn’t the outcome it measured, and its authors warn against applying it to every kind of writing. I read it as a reason to stop when writing isn’t helping. With no group that wrote nothing, it can’t say whether expressive writing held people back or the control task helped.

A journal isn’t treatment, and neither is this list. The NHS in the UK says to see a GP if you’re struggling to cope with anger, if the things you’re doing to help yourself aren’t working, or if you’re acting in an abusive or violent way. If anger is hurting you or the people around you, Get help lists crisis lines and ways to find support.