WELLNESS
How To Use Mood Tracking To Get A Better Sense Of Your Triggers
By ROBIN ZABIEGALSKI
For Overall Mental Health
Everyone can benefit from tracking their moods, even if they're not dealing with mental health issues. Mood tracking allows you to see how you're feeling over time and identify when the emotional pressure is building, giving you the chance to prepare for or prevent big mood swings.
For Anxiety And Depression
Recording your mood for an extended period can not only identify depressive episodes, but can also help predict them before they can occur. A couple of studies have revealed that anxiety can be a strong predictor of a depressive episode and that tracking moods can decrease anxiety symptoms.
For Personality Disorders
Mood tracking is an essential part of treatment for people living with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder because it helps them identify the circumstances, thoughts, and feelings that lead to mood shifts. It helps them to identify and avoid triggers and helps them to change their behavior around them.
Helps Identify Patterns
The power of mood tracking is that it gives you a record of your moods over time and allows you to see the whole picture in a concrete way and to notice patterns. Once you've noticed these patterns in your moods, you can investigate what's behind them to get a better understanding of your triggers.
Helps Identify Triggers
The reasons your emotional data patterns happen is because of your triggers. These cause an extreme emotional reaction by making us feel really uncomfortable and activating our innate “fight or flight” response, so once you understand your triggers, you can address them.