Tried a mood tracker for 45 days and it just stressed me out more

I started a mood tracker in my bullet journal back in February, color coding every day with a marker. After about 3 weeks I noticed I was spending way too much time deciding what color to use for a day that felt mixed. Last weekend I flipped back through April and realized I was just picking the same shade of yellow over and over. Did anyone else try tracking moods and find it made you overthink your feelings instead of helping?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixlee15d ago

You mentioned "picking the same shade of yellow over and over" and that reminded me of my friend Beth. She tried one of those mood tracking apps for two months and told me she started dreading the daily notification because she felt like she had to justify her feelings. One time she had a perfectly fine Tuesday but marked it as "neutral" and then spent ten minutes second-guessing if neutral was really accurate or if she was just repressing something. She finally quit when she realized she was getting anxious about whether her mood graph was forming a pretty bell curve or not. The whole thing turned her everyday ups and downs into homework.

sage_ramirez4214d ago

oh man, that bell curve thing is too real. @felixlee i once spent twenty minutes trying decide if my mood was "calm" or "content" in an app and then realized i was basically just arguing with myself about synonyms. idk, maybe the whole point is that feelings don't need grading.

aaron88415d ago

@felixlee that "justify her feelings" part hits different like when I overthink my coffee order.