3 Reasons to Track Your Mood

A mood tracker is an excel lent tool for those with mental illness to keep track of their symptoms. When you keep a daily record of your symptoms, you will learn a lot about yourself and your condition, allowing you to take better care of yourself. Mood trackers also have many more benefits that you might not know about.  

1. Recognize Your Triggers

One benefit of mood tracking is that you will be able to learn what your triggers are . Those with PTSD  can especially benefit from learning their triggers so that they can avoid situations that may cause a serious episode.  

People with anxiety can also benefit from learning their triggers so that they can avoid situations that cause a serious panic attack or anxiety attack. Or if the situation is unavoidable, you can learn how to prepare for the experience by developing healthy coping mechanisms .  

So how does mood tracking help you learn your triggers? When you keep track of your moods every day, you can connect those moods to events that occurred during your day. This activity will help you more easily see what triggers your mental illness, which will allow you to know exactly what situations to avoid or take more caution in.  

2. Recognize Outside Factors Contributing to Your Symptoms

Those who deal with mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, bipolar , and other conditions may not always know what causes them to have feelings of sadness or anxiousness. Sometimes it’s just a chemical imbalance, but there can also be situations in your life that contribute to your mental condition.  

Like recognizing a trigger, tracking your daily moods will allow you to compare your moods to the places you go, activities you participate in, and the people you see. If any of these aspects align with a negative mood, then that might be what is causing some of your depression and anxiety.  

Then you can stop doing any of the things that might be causing depression or anxiety and use your mood tracker to see if your symptoms improve.

3. Get a More Accurate Diagnosis 

Mood trackers are not only useful to your understanding of your mental health condition but also your mental health providers. A psychiatrist can use your symptoms to give you a more accurate diagnosis, which in turn, allows them to provide you with the best treatment.  

A mood tracker also allows you and your psychiatrist to track how a medication is working and whether you need to alter the dose, combination of meds, or even the type of medication you’re taking.  

Similarly, your counselor can use the data that you gather from your mood tracker to help you learn how to cope with your feelings. Once you know what is causing your negative feelings, your counselor will know exactly how to help you recognize your feelings and combat them.  

If you are struggling to understand your mental illness and manage your symptoms, a mood tracker could be a life-saving tool. At Serenity Mental Health Centers, we’ve created a printable mood tracker for our patients to stick in a planner or journal or even hang up somewhere in their home. If you’re ready to take control of your mental illness by tracking your mood, download and print it for free .

If you would rather keep track of your symptoms electronically, you can also find quite a few free and paid phone apps  that will allow you to keep track of your moods and even export them into a spreadsheet. And if you enjoy getting in touch with your creative side, you can make your own mood tracker in a bullet journal .

There are numerous ways to keep track of your moods, so find what works for you and stick to it. You will be amazed at how much it can help.