How a mood tracker helps manage happiness and what other benefits it can do

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-13 00:26

The daily fixation of the emotional state leads to positive changes in different areas of life.

What is a mood tracker

This is one way to keep track of how you are feeling. The tracker format is widely used in the Bullet Journal system. And it would be most accurate to compare it to the diary of observations of the weather, which you most likely kept in elementary school in natural history lessons.

If so, perhaps you remember how every month you had to draw a piece of paper in squares according to the number of days and write down how many degrees it was outside every day. And also draw a red circle if it was clear, or a blue one if the sun was not showing.

A mood tracker works the same way. You draw squares - one for each day, and then paint them daily, for example, according to the following scheme:

• green if you were in a great mood;
• red if you are angry;
• blue if you were sad;
• orange if the mood jumped.

You can add other options depending on what emotions you often experience. The mood tracker looks like this:

But a variety of design options are also possible. Let's say here's a flower meadow mood tracker:

But in the form of mountains:

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Additional options can be added to the base template:

• Divide mood trackers into work and home. This is useful, for example, if you need to define how you feel about work, but an evening with your family erases from your memory all the negativity of the past day.
• Provide lines for recording the emotions you experienced during the day. It will be helpful if you are clearly aware of the factors that influence your mood. Let's say you get poured coffee on the subway in the morning and you get angry all day. A good option for those who know how to recognize and name emotions.
• Make a list of what good happened to you during the day and what you were good at, so that a bad mood does not allow you to forget about reasons for joy.

The flight of imagination is not limited here - it all depends on your goals.

Why maintain a mood tracker

He will help you understand how you really felt

If you are now asked how your last month went, you are unlikely to remember from day to day what mood you were in. Rather, you will be guided by your current feelings. If you are on the rise, then you will estimate the month as a whole quite well. Sadness or anger will make you focus on the negative. This is normal and very human. For example, people can hardly even estimate how much they eat, although this is a more quantifiable thing. What can we say about the mood.

The tracker will help you to look at the situation more realistically. For example, you have a falling out with colleagues. You feel so bad that it seems as if all the work does not bring any joy. You're ready to throw your boss's letter of resignation onto the desk. And the mood tracker will tell you that you actually felt great most days, so it might be worth waiting for the tide of anger to subside.

Or, on the contrary, you received your salary today and are in high spirits. You think that everything is not so bad, and you can be patient. But your work mood tracker is all red and screams about suffering, so it might be worth considering a change.

For example, during depression, a person often talks about his life as meaningless and bringing only suffering. Usually this is a mistake of thinking: he is distorted, as if in a tunnel, sees only bad events, not noticing those that bring joy. With the help of the tracker, it would be possible to see your life from a different, more realistic point of view.

Kirill Filippov psychologist, psychotherapist

It will allow you to track patterns and correct the situation

The tracker helps you identify and trace patterns that affect your emotional background. It seems to us that the mood changes by itself, for no particular reason. But it is not so.

If you observe it for a long time, you can determine the causes of anxiety, fatigue, notice the relationship between the weather and mood, understand what exactly affects it.

Oleg Ivanov psychologist, conflictologist, head of the Center for Settlement of Social Conflicts

This knowledge can be applied to make life better.

Remove irritants

It happens that over and over again the same things spoil our mood. But we are able to influence many of them. For example, you are constantly burning in flames of deadlines and suffering from it. Perhaps they are unrealistic, and you need to discuss the timing with your manager. Or someone constantly breaks into your workflow and prevents you from completing work on time, so turning off your phone and instant messengers will help.

Another example: many of us get annoyed by reading comments under articles or posts on a certain topic. But someone quickly calms down, and someone carries negative through the whole day. For people in the second category, a mood tracker will help them realize that social media is affecting them more than they seem, and to tie up with reading comments.

Be more productive

Not all irritants can be removed. There are things that will invariably affect your mood, making it better or worse. And even if you cannot eliminate these fluctuations, but you can take them into account, making life at least a little better.

For example, if you notice that your mood on Monday is usually clearly worse than on other days, then it is better not to burden him with important things. And the most successful day for you is Thursday, you can schedule important assignments for it. Thus, you will evenly distribute the load, plan your work and rest.

Oleg Ivanov

Manage happiness

A mood tracker helps you identify not only irritants, but also things that bring you happiness and joy.

We use something similar in the treatment of depression. The person writes down his day, what he did, and next notes the level of satisfaction and pleasure. From the notes, we can understand what pleases him the most. Then, to improve the quality of life, we plan for the next week more of those activities that brought him pleasure.

Kirill Filippov

He will tell you when it's time to see a specialist

Life, of course, is full of suffering, but it is not entirely normal to feel unhappy all the time. If day after day, month after month, you paint your mood tracker red, it could indicate depression.

If you understand that for a long time your mood has been bad, apathy, irritability, tearfulness have appeared, then it is better to consult a psychologist.

Yulia Kuznetsova psychologist at the Teledoktor24 service

If your mood jumps back and forth, it can also signal that it's time to consult with a specialist. If you decide to contact a psychologist for help, the mood tracker will come in handy for analyzing your condition.

How else can you capture mood

The tracker is just one form, and in general any kind of diary will work. You can maintain a private Telegram channel only for yourself, write the state in a notebook or use a special application - the content is more important here than the form.

Daylio