Morning pages for anxiety and overthinking

5 min read
A woman on a park bench in the morning, sipping coffee and writing in a notebook, a thermos beside her

If your head starts running before your feet touch the floor, you're not alone. A lot of people come to morning pages for that reason. They don't want to become writers. They want somewhere to put the loop of what-ifs, unsent replies and half-made plans that plays every morning.

Morning pages can help with that. They aren't therapy, and they won't treat an anxiety disorder. Read this as a description of a writing habit, written by people who make a writing app. If anxiety is shaping your days, a doctor, psychologist or therapist is the right place to start, and morning pages can sit alongside that support.

What morning pages are

Julia Cameron described the practice in The Artist's Way (1992): three pages written first thing in the morning, by hand in her version, in one go. You don't stop, you don't edit, and nobody reads them. On a keyboard, three pages come to roughly 750 words. Our guide to morning pages covers the rules in more detail.

Cameron wrote them as a tool for creativity, and she didn't present them as a treatment for anything. Many people still describe the same side effect: they start the day with a quieter head.

Why writing it down can ease an overthinking mind

When a thought stays in your head, it can repeat without end. You go over it, lose track of where you were, and start again. Once you write it down, it has a beginning and an end, and you can see it outside yourself. For many people, a worry looks smaller and more specific in ink than it felt in the dark.

Psychologists have studied this for decades. James Pennebaker and his colleagues began researching "expressive writing" in the 1980s. In their studies, people wrote about difficult experiences and feelings for short sessions over a few days. Many studies found modest benefits for mood and well-being, while others found little or no effect. Expressive writing isn't the same thing as morning pages, and the research doesn't prove that morning pages reduce anxiety. It does suggest that putting feelings into words is worth a try for many people.

What morning pages can and can't do

Morning pages can give your worries a place to land, so they don't follow you around all morning. They can also show you patterns over a few weeks: the same fear every Sunday night, the same person on your mind, the same task you keep avoiding. And they give you a few minutes that belong only to you, before the day asks anything of you.

Morning pages can't replace professional help. They can't diagnose anything or tell you why you feel the way you do. Some mornings they won't make you feel better, either. Writing about a hard thing can stir it up before it settles, and that's normal.

How to start gently

Start smaller than three pages. If 750 words feels like a test, set a timer for ten minutes instead. In Out of My Head, type /10 at the start of a line and a small sun moves along an arc in the corner until the time is up. When it ends, you're done, however much you wrote.

Write the loop as it is. You don't need to analyse the worry or fix it. If the same sentence comes out three times, write it three times. Seeing it repeat on the page is useful information.

Name the feeling, then keep going. "I'm anxious about the meeting" is enough. You don't have to explain it or reason with it. Keep writing and see what comes next.

Use "I don't know what to write" without guilt. Cameron suggests writing exactly that when nothing comes. It counts, and it keeps your hand moving until something else turns up.

Close the page when you finish. Don't reread your pages straight away, and don't turn them into a to-do list. Cameron suggests not rereading for the first eight weeks.

Gentle first lines for anxious mornings

A blank page can feel like one more demand, so borrow a first line:

When you open a blank page in the app, it shows a greyed-out first line like these. Press Tab to use it, or ask for another one. There are more in our list of prompts.

Overthinking in the evening

For some people, the noise peaks at night rather than in the morning. You can do the same practice before bed: a few minutes of writing to leave the day on the page before you sleep. We wrote about it in evening pages.

When the pages turn heavy

Morning pages are private, and at times they'll hold things that are hard to read. That's allowed. Still, watch for a few signs:

Privacy makes it easier to be honest

Many people write cautiously because they fear someone will read it. Anxiety makes that fear louder. If you keep a notebook, find a place where nobody will look. If you write online, choose a tool that encrypts your words.

Out of My Head encrypts every page before storing it, keeps the data in the European Union, and doesn't show anyone else what you write. Spellcheck is off by default, so no red lines appear under your sentences while you type. On the free plan you can reread the last seven days. The AI weekly reflection in Pro only runs if you ask for it and agree first.

A small plan for the first week

  1. Pick one moment: right after the kettle, before you open your phone.
  2. Set a ten-minute timer.
  3. Start with a borrowed first line.
  4. Write whatever comes, including the worries and the repeats.
  5. Close the page without rereading it.
  6. After seven days, ask yourself one question: are my mornings a bit quieter?

If they are, keep going. If they aren't, that's fine too. Try writing in the evening instead, or another way to look after yourself.

You don't have to feel calm to start. You only have to start writing. Open a blank page →