Bullet Journal Ideas for Eating Disorder Recovery
Bullet Journal Ideas
TRIGGER WARNING- Please be careful when searching bullet journal ideas online. As with anything on the internet, there can be influences of diet culture in certain bullet journal posts. Sometimes what might seam benign can be triggering or unhealthy for someone in Eating Disorder recovery. Always search with a trusted adult or have them search the web for you. I put all of these inspiration photos together, so you don’t need to search at all!
Journaling is a great coping tool that I recommend all of my eating disorder clients try at least once. To their credit, most of them will! But I often hear back from teenagers, “I didn’t like it”, “it wasn’t helpful”, “I didn’t know what to write”. That’s when I got the idea to start recommending Bullet Journaling instead of just unstructured journal writing. Most teenagers I work with enjoy art and being creative so bullet journaling or BUJO as it is sometimes referred to, appeals to that. It combines list writing, tracking, emotion chart, inspirational quotes, mood logs, free ideas all with creative, colorful pictures or drawings to make these things more appealing to the eye. Bullet journaling has benefits for clients with eating disorders such as tracking emotions or mood, writing down eating disorder recovery goals, journaling about future goals and wishes that can be motivators for recovery and having a place to keep inspirational quotes for a boost in difficult moments during recovery. The possibilities on how to use bullet journaling in eating disorder treatment are really endless.
There are so many BUJO inspiration pages online, but I wanted to gather some that are appropriate for kids or teens with eating disorders or those in eating disorder treatment for teens that would not be triggering or possibly misused by the eating disorder for something unhealthy. These are just a starting point to get your creativity flowing! Bullet journaling can incorporate pages of free journaling, drawing, painting, stickers, or just notes in with the more structured pages pictured below. There are no rules, make it your own! Commit to journaling at a certain time each day or each week for at least one month to see if you enjoy it or can find any benefit from it. Often, getting our emotions out onto paper helps us to better discuss them in therapy.
Write your short and long term goals
It’s so important in eating disorder treatment for kids and teens to keep looking forward and have something you are working towards, especially on the challenging days. I advise my clients, in eating disorder therapy in Columbus, Ohio to set 3 short term eating disorder recovery goals (meaning in the next 3 months) and 3 long term recovery goals (anytime longer than 3 months). This ensures there are things that feel within reach, as well as larger, bigger picture goals to keep you motivated. Recovery is something you have to chose each day, sometimes multiple times a day and being able to have a visual of why you are choosing it and what you are working for is helpful.
2. Make a gratitude page
Draw small pictures or use stickers to create a list of things you are grateful for. Research has shown practicing gratitude can increase are feelings of happiness-who doesn’t want that?! We know in eating disorder treatment for adolescents, there is a high comorbidity with depression & anxiety so mood can be a challenge during eating disorder recovery. Reminding yourself that there are good things in your life can help you get through the less sunny days.
3. Celebrate with a birthday page!
We know that giving to others and social connections 100% improve our mood- so what better way to ensure we have a circle of support around us in eating disorder treatment for teens than to make sure we have all our friends and families birthdays written down so we can be sure to send a text, card or make plans to get together! Sure, we all have them in our iphones, but a page with balloons & presents for each on our our loved ones? I think so!
4. Make a monthly spread
Eating disorder treatment for adolescents in Columbus, Ohio often times means lots of appointments, with lots of different people, in lots of different places. You have eating disorder therapists, eating disorders dietitians, physicians, mental health therapists, school liaisons and more. A monthly spread can help you keep track of appointments in a fun and playful way and take some of the monotony of appointments away.
5. Sleep Tracker
Tracking not only your sleep, but your sleep habits and pre-bedtime routine, can help you to notice patterns and correlations. As an Eating disorder therapist in Columbus, Ohio, I always ask and check in on how my clients are sleeping. Eating disorders can impact sleep and clients often report difficulty getting good sleep. Sometimes lack of proper nutrition can cause your body to keep you up at night in an effort to help you to go find food. Tracking how your sleep is changing can show you that with proper nutrition, you are getting better sleep! You may also notice patterns such as when you watch TV before bed you are not sleeping well, but when you read and do your skin-care routine you get great rest! What we do during the day impacts our sleep at night and tracking is a way to help us improve our good habits.
6. Brain Dump
A brain dump in a bullet journal is just letting your mind wander on the page. No strucutre, no rules, no guildelines, just get everything out of your mind and onto the paper. In eating disorder recovery, minds can be overwhelmed with thoughts and noise. Often times, the simple act of getting thoughts out of our head can help us to let go of the thoughts that aren’t serving us. When we keep everything inside, it feels big, scary and powerful, but when we can share or at least express our thoughts out loud or on paper, it takes away some of their power and helps to give us some persepctive. Name it to tame it. Name the feelings as what they are (“I’m feeling anxious about my upcoming doctor’s appointment) and you have the ability to look at that thought with more distance and have it hold less space in your mind.
7. Track your meditation
As an eating disorder therapist, I always recommend meditation to my teen clients. It can be as simple as practinig mental stillness while brushing your teeth. Each day you are able to practice mediatation for even five minutes, you can log in your journal and give yourself a star! The more you practice, the better you will be at managing your thoughts and emotions and allowing thoughts to come and go freely.
8. Quote Page
Use these pages to write down quotes to help you keep going when eating disorder treatment gets tough! These can be your own quotes or ones you find on the internet. Draw them with pretty details and calligraphy- practice different fonts and styles and make it your own!
9. Positive Affirmations
Positive affirmations can be defined as positive phrases or statements that we repeat to ourselves. Generally they are used to manifest goals, dreams, or experiences we desire.
-Avoid Negatives: Be careful not to use negatives in your affirmations. For example, if your positive affirmation states, “I am not sick anymore," your mindset is focusing on avoidance (of the bad) rather than approach (of the good). Similarly, a statement such as “I am done with toxic relationships” might backfire because it focuses on bad relationships, not good ones. Instead, focus your affirmation on the most positive outcome.
-Use the Present Tense or Present Progressive When Saying Positive Affirmations: Concepts like “soon” or “later” or “better" lack clarity and can allow your affirmation to lose focus and efficacy. So keep your positive affirmations simple, and construct your sentences in the present tense. For example, “I am healthy and happy” rather than “I will be happy soon”. It's more of a reassurance than a goal. By being clear and indicating in the phrase that we already are or have what we desire, we start generating the emotions that come from the statement actually being true. Ex, “I am working on myself”.
-Create affirmations that are meaningful to you and have a minimum of 10% believability to you: You do not have to believe them 100% at the beginning- or else you wouldn’t need positive affirmations! But you want a kernel of truth in there. They also do not have to be true 100% of the time- no one is perfect!
-Say them out loud and with confidence. It might seems silly, but “fake it ‘til you make it”! The only way to get our brain to believe these is to say them like we mean them!
-Short, sweet & to the point- we don’t want them to be too long or complicated or else it will be hard to remember them.
10. Self-care tracker
Use this page to track your self-care goals and habits. Self-care is important during eating disorder treatment due to the high stress load that treatment brings up. It can be a lot of appointments and stress during meals, so taking time away from meals and meetings to do something for yourself is an important way to refuel your energy tank. Teenagers who struggle with an eating disorder often have comorbid depression and anxiety issues. It can be easy to isolate or sink deeper into the depression and anxiety, so encouragement from parents to engage in a positive coping skill of self-care can be helpful.
If you or someone you know needs eating disorder treatment in Ohio, please visit my site to learn more about eating disorder treatment in Ohio. I provide virtual eating disorder therapy services from Columbus, Ohio and work with teens and young adults in college. I treat anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in adolescents in Ohio.
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This blog is intended to be educational and informational and does not substitute for professional medical and therapeutic help, which is highly recommended when treating an eating disorder. If you would like help treating your child’s eating issues or want to learn more, Schedule a free consultation call today.