What’s up, guys. Damian Jay here. This week on The Morning Drive, I wanted to talk about journaling. How I got into it. Why I resisted it for so long. And, honestly, how it’s changed the way I think about pretty much everything.

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to become “a journaling guy.” This came out of necessity.

Why I Needed Guardrails

I’ve talked before about jobs that were a little tougher. Fast paced. High dependency on other people. A lot of moving parts. A lot of situations where things go sideways and you’re not always sure where to put the frustration.

I’ve always believed in the 24 hour rule. You get one chance to vent about something in a 24 hour window. After that, you move on. You don’t keep rehashing it. You don’t relive it over and over again. You don’t keep feeding it.

What I started noticing, though, was that even when I wasn’t angry, I was anxious.

I remember telling my wife one day, “Sometimes I’m not even mad. I just have anxiety about the moment and I need to vent.”

That’s when it clicked.

The 90 Second Problem

There’s this idea that your body naturally only holds onto an emotional response for about 90 seconds. Anything after that is on you. If someone cuts you off in traffic, you get about 90 seconds of elevated heart rate, tension, irritation. After that, you’re choosing to keep it alive.

Every time you retell the story, you restart the clock.

And storytelling makes it worse.

When you tell someone about something that happened, you relive it. Your heart rate picks up. Your voice changes. You re inject the emotion to make the story land. That’s great when you’re talking about fireworks or a concert or something fun. But when it’s frustration or anxiety, you’re just dragging it back into your system over and over again.

I realized I needed a place to put that energy that didn’t involve reliving it socially.

What Journaling Changed

Journaling gave me a way to be present with what I was feeling and then let it go.

There’s a finality that comes from writing something down. It doesn’t live in the air anymore. It doesn’t need another audience. It doesn’t need to be retold.

I set some rules for myself.

If I write about something that bothered me, I also write what I learned from it. What I can control. What I can’t. And what I’m taking with me moving forward.

I relive it once, on paper, and then it’s done.

That’s the difference.

Why I Resisted It For So Long

Part of this is generational.

I’m Gen X. We weren’t exactly raised to talk about our feelings. Add growing up in lower income environments and it compounds. Nobody cared what was wrong with you. At best, you got made fun of for it. At worst, it was used against you.

So yeah, the idea of journaling sounded like a waste of time to me for a long time. Those old voices stick around.

The Advice I Ignored Until I Didn’t

Someone at work actually suggested journaling to me after I vented about the same issue twice. She said something along the lines of, “Have you ever thought about writing this stuff down? You might be holding onto it longer than you realize.”

I brushed it off.

It wasn’t until much later that it clicked, and ironically, it clicked because of something completely unrelated.

The Roman Empire, Of All Things

We joke about how often men think about the Roman Empire. But what actually pushed me over the edge was reading Marcus Aurelius.

Here was someone running an empire, dealing with pressure, chaos, responsibility, and he processed it by writing it down.

That hit me.

If the guy responsible for the Roman Empire needed a place to put his thoughts, maybe I could stop pretending I didn’t.

What My Journaling Actually Looks Like

I started journaling about two weeks before I got laid off.

Every morning, I’d sit down and write:

• Things that were bothering me
• Things I could control
• Things I couldn’t

Then I’d write three things I was grateful for.

And three things I was committed to completing that day.

I don’t write down things I’m already good at. The gym isn’t on the list. I go to the gym every day. Sometimes twice a day. CrossFit, then Olympic lifting. That’s not the challenge.

The challenge is the thing I’d normally procrastinate on.

If something is due Friday, Wednesday becomes the goal.

Get it done now.

That structure helped more than I expected.

Mental Health, Quietly Improving

I had already started using lists and systems to manage my days, but I wasn’t actually dealing with my mental health. Journaling changed that.

It gave me a place to vent without dragging other people into it. It forced me to sit with why something actually bothered me. And then it let me move forward instead of looping.

People ask what happens on days when nothing goes wrong.

Those days happen more often than you’d think.

On those days, I just write the gratitude list again. Health. My wife. A son on the way. A roof over my head. Opportunities. Simple things.

That practice alone rewires how you look at your day.

Paying Attention To The Feeling

I wanted to circle back to the 90 second rule.

When something spikes your anxiety or anger, pay attention to how it feels in your body. The tightness in your chest. The shallow breathing. The tension.

Then ask where it actually came from.

Most road rage isn’t about traffic. It’s displaced emotion looking for a release. You’re never going to see that driver again. You won’t remember the car. You won’t remember the person.

So why give it an entry point into your psyche?

You don’t have to suppress it. You just have to redirect it.

See it. Acknowledge it. Write it down. Let it go.

That’s what journaling gave me.