After taking a look at a few of the mood trackers that have long been available online, I was very unsatisfied with both how they asked you about your mood (“How depressed are you today?”) and the results they displayed (can we say “unhelpful”?). Mood trackers are used to help you track your emotional state on a daily or weekly basis, helping you get a better grasp on your emotions. Mood trackers can also help you determine your treatment’s effectiveness over time.

Like a screening quiz for depression or anxiety, you typically can’t just ask a person, “How depressed are you?” and get any kind of answer that you can hang your hat on. People aren’t always the best judge of their own mood states — especially when they are in the downward or upward swings of mania or depression.

So we formulated a different kind of mood tracker. Introducing the Psych Central Mood Tracker!

We take a different approach to mood. We ask you 12 simple questions that can help determine your current mood state for depression, mania and anxiety. It also determines whether you may be sleeping too little or too much, which can also contribute to one’s mood. You can also leave a brief journal note for your entry.

Then we tally your results and present you an attractive, immediately useful graph of your mood states over time. They are automatically saved to your Psych Central account, so you can keep track of how you’re getting better or worse in treatment or on your own. (A free Psych Central account is required in order to use the Mood Tracker.)

We hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave us feedback in the comments below.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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Dealing With Sorrow (7/10/2009)

    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 17 Jun 2009
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.