Track Your Moods

Quick Win

Research suggests that tracking your moods can be a powerful tool for self-awareness and self-reflection.

Try This Today

• Keep a log. Use a pen and paper or a mood-tracking app such as Daylio, Breathe2Relax or Moodfit. 
• Quiz Yourself. Throughout the day, ask, What am I feeling? and What made me feel this way? 
• Eye your energy. Take note of what times of day you have the most pep and last least. 
• Look for patterns. At the end of each day and week, see if you can recognize patterns in your emotional ebbs and flows so you can find ways to balance them. 

Why

Many people don’t realize the power they have to change how they feel, from stressed to relaxed or from sluggish to motivated. Making note of patterns in your mood over the course of a day, week or month is a good first step. In a study published in JMIR Mental Health in 2021 in which 22 adults between age 18 and 58 were interviewed about their use of mood-tracking apps, researchers concluded that keeping track of moods “facilitated self-awareness and helped [people] to look back on a previous emotion or mood experience to understand what was happening.” Once you build awareness of your patterns, you’ll be more empowered to change how you feel using strategies like meditation or slow breathing.