Our mood is different on different days. Even at any given time of the day.
And many of us don’t pause to think why.
What is triggering these mood changes? And is your mood coming in the way of your everyday life and relationships?
There are many such questions for which if you find the answer, you can improve your life and interactions tremendously!
Enter Mood Trackers!
What is a mood tracker?
A mood tracker is a tool that you can use to track and monitor your moods. It can be physical like pen and paper or it can be a device, application, or website. We will discuss each type in the next section.
Mood trackers can be used to track daily moods, bipolar disorder symptoms, mania, depression, and anxiety. Apart from acting as an instrument to help many mental health issues, it is a positive psychology technique that everyone can use to become more self-aware.
They help you to identify patterns in your mood and how different factors influence it.
Types of mood trackers
There are different platforms and formats in which you can track your mood. It can vary from choosing one of the eight mood options available to noting down thoughts linked to that mood.
You can choose the one which suits your needs and you can be consistent with.
Physical Journal: You can use a physical journal as a mood tracker. This allows you to create your own format and write down the mood, the cause and even your next course of action. Reading back will give you detailed insights into your thought process.
These days many planners come with a mood tracker. If you like using planners, you can opt for one with a mood tracker so that everything is in one place.
Apps: It should come as no surprise that there are apps for mood tracking.
They make mood tracking easy with a beautiful user interface, regular reminders to record your mood, and more amazingly, they can generate insights and show the patterns. Plus, you always have your phone in hand!
Visual Trackers: This is another physical option, but instead of writing things down, you will be doing a little bit of coloring or crossing off to track your mood. You can use a mood chart, mood mandala or other templates for visual mood tracking. This is a great way to visually see your mood spectrum and fluctuations over time.
Our mood trackers are available online, and I absolutely love them. You can just download them, take a printout and start coloring!
Benefits of mood tracking
1. Creates awareness
When you track your mood regularly, you are forced to pause and acknowledge your emotions. Emotions can tell a lot about us. When you start paying attention to them, you become more aware of yourself.
2. Recognizing patterns
More often than not, there are patterns to our behavior which we rarely notice. You might feel grumpy all day on certain days of the week without reason. Mood tracking will show you that it is because those are the days when you watch television late at night, and it’s ruining your sleep cycle.
Knowing the patterns gives you the power to change them if they are not helpful. You can stop letting the moods drive you around and take the driver seat.
3. Spot triggers
Mood swings happen because of internal or external triggers. Mood tracking helps you identify these triggers to consciously take action to limit interactions with negative triggers.
That neighbor whose constant complaints drains your energy isn’t worth it! So is the friend whose fake modesty makes you feel small!
4. Develop coping mechanisms
As mood tracking allows you to identify your mood swings, you can start developing action plans to cope with them. If you notice that the thought of Monday morning brings you down on a Sunday night, you can try doing an activity on Monday mornings that will make you look forward to it.
Or if certain people’s company doesn’t make you feel good, you can reduce the interactions with them over time.
5. Communicate clearly
Putting emotions into words is a struggle for many. And when you don’t know what your mood is and why it becomes harder. But for a good understanding between two people, clear communication is important.
With mood tracking, you will get to know yourself better and hence, be able to express yourself better. No more masking hurt behind anger and making the situation worse!
6. Identify when you need help
While there are so many tools and practices that we can use to manage our moods better, sometimes we could use some external help. Mood tracking can tell you if you are feeling stuck or having mood patterns that are indicators of anxiety or depression.
In such cases, you should reach out for professional help.
7. Safe space for your moods
If not for anything else, mood tracking could simply be a safe space for you to express your emotions and be real with yourself. We all need a release of emotions and sometimes might not have the right environment for this. But a mood tracker will always be that safe space.
Be it anger, happiness, or confusion; you can get it out of your system by pouring it out to your mood tracker.
Tips for mood tracking
With effective mood tracking, you can turn your life around! And here are a few tips to make that happen:
1. It’s important to track your mood at the same time every day. This will help you establish a routine and make it easier to track patterns.
2. Try to be specific in your tracking. Don’t just track whether you feel “good” or “bad” – try to get more detail, such as what emotions you’re feeling and the company you’re in. This will give you a better understanding of your moods and what might be causing them.
3. Don’t forget to take into account outside factors that could affect your mood. A good example of this is being in a bad mood because of construction noise.
4. Be 100% honest. We hide and lie enough to the outside world. Your mood tracker is a safe space for you to understand yourself. So, try to avoid the temptation to just note down positive moods to feel better about yourself.
5. Don’t ignore positive emotions. While some might find it tempting to note only the positive, some might completely ignore doing it! No, please don’t ignore the mood tracker that’s been with you through tough times when you are happy. Jokes apart, you need to note both positive and negative moods as you experience them to get an overall understanding of your mood swings.
To conclude,
Now that we have an idea of how to track our moods, I think it might be time to answer one of the most important questions when it comes to mood tracking: are they even effective?
Mood trackers can be an extremely effective form of self-tracking because it makes you take the time to understand your feelings and what might trigger them, which can lead to a better understanding of yourself.
The process is also very simple. The patterns you observe might not be 100% accurate, but they certainly help you better understand your emotions and how to control them.
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