Junk Journaling for Anxiety & Depression Relief

Junk journaling is a low-pressure, creative way to express what’s going on inside, especially when you can’t find the right words. Instead of writing in perfect sentences or worrying about neat handwriting, you use scraps, textures, images, layers, and whatever bits you have around. The pages don’t have to make sense. They don’t have to look good. They just have to feel true.

For anyone dealing with anxiety, depression, or burnout, junk journaling becomes more than just a craft. It’s a quiet space where your emotions can breathe without needing to be explained. This isn’t about making art. It’s about making room for yourself, exactly as you are.

How Journaling Supports Depression

When you're in a low place, even something like regular journaling can feel like too much. Junk journaling offers a softer, more flexible way to care for yourself.

There’s no pressure to do it a certain way. Scribbles, messy glue, ripped pages, and half-finished thoughts all count. The freedom to be imperfect can feel like a relief. You don’t even need to write. If words are hard to find, you can express yourself through images, color, shapes, and textures. A torn magazine page or a splash of paint can say more than a sentence ever could.

This practice also gets you out of your head and into your hands. The physical movements of cutting, gluing, and layering can bring you back into your body, even if just for a few minutes. That moment of connection matters.

Finishing a single page, or even just adding one piece to it, can be a small but meaningful win. On days when everything else feels overwhelming, creating something, even a mess, can help you feel like you’ve done something real.

And maybe most importantly, junk journaling is private. You don’t need to share or explain any of it. You can be honest, messy, sentimental, dark, hopeful, or numb. Whatever you are, however you feel, you’re allowed to put that on the page.

Over time, your journal becomes a reflection of you, your thoughts, your values, your survival. Even when the pages are chaotic, they show that you’re still here. And that, in itself, is healing.

How Journaling Helps with Anxiety

Anxiety often feels like a storm of thoughts, racing, looping, and spiraling with no off switch. Junk journaling gives that energy something to do. It helps settle your mind by engaging your hands.

When your nervous system is in overdrive, small, repetitive actions like cutting, taping, coloring, or flipping pages can help ground you. They bring your focus out of your head and into the present moment. Instead of holding everything inside, you can give your anxious thoughts a place to go. Scribble them down. Tear them up. Cover them with paint or tape. Let the emotions move, instead of letting them stay trapped inside you.

This practice also gives back a sense of control. When anxiety makes everything feel unpredictable, choosing a color, arranging pieces, or deciding what goes on a page can help create a bit of structure that feels manageable. Perfectionism often tags along with anxiety, whispering that you’re doing it wrong. Junk journaling quiets that voice. You're allowed to make a mess. In fact, the mess is part of the process.

What If You Don’t Like Writing or Hate Your Handwriting?

You’re not the only one. A lot of people avoid journaling because they don’t like writing by hand, feel embarrassed by their handwriting, or think their pages need to be deep, neat, or meaningful.

The truth is, none of that matters here.

You can fill an entire page without writing a single word. Cut out words from magazines. Use a label maker. Write in block letters, or use your non-dominant hand. Cover up your writing with stickers or paper if that feels right. Junk journaling doesn’t care how it looks. This practice isn’t about how it reads. It’s about how it feels.

Getting Started Is Simple

You don’t need special supplies. Start with what you already have.

Grab an old notebook, printer paper, or even pages from a book you no longer need. Collect scraps, receipts, envelopes, dried leaves, stickers, newspaper, packaging, or photos. Use scissors and glue. Grab some markers, crayons, or pencils. Add song lyrics, quotes, doodles, or whatever speaks to you in the moment.

It doesn’t need to look a certain way. It just needs to be yours.

Prompts to Try When You’re Not Sure Where to Start

• Use a color that matches how you feel today.

• Create a collage titled “Things I’ve Survived.”

• Fill a page with images or words that bring you comfort.

• Let your anxious thoughts spill onto a page, scribble, tape, tear, paint.

• Make a page with the title “This Doesn’t Have to Make Sense.”

Final Thoughts

Junk journaling doesn’t ask for clarity or answers. It doesn’t need to be tidy or inspiring. It simply offers a space to be with whatever you’re feeling, numb, overwhelmed, uncertain, angry, sad, or hopeful.

You don’t need to finish the page. You don’t have to like how it turns out. You just have to show up for yourself. Quietly. Creatively. Imperfectly.

And that’s more than enough.

Take Care,

Jane Klingberg