How to Measure Your Mental Health (FREEBIE inside!)

Does this time of quarantine have you feeling a little anxious, uncertain about the future, stuck in the blah’s as the monotony wears on, or on the ever-present roller coaster of emotions?   I believe that all of these feelings are valid and very common during this strange time.

I remember when I was struggling with some negative emotions during college, and feeling really frustrated that there was no “test” -- no quantitative way – that I had access to in order to evaluate my day-to-day mental health.  What I also remember about this time in my young adult life is that I had very distinctive “red flags” that actually were showing me how I was doing! I was lamenting to a professor about there not being a blood test or something to accurately give me an inside peek into “how I was doing”, and she suggested—"why don’t you create your own?”  I thought this was a brilliant concept!

Side note:  This reminds me of being in the hospital following the birth of each of my four sweet babies, and every time the nurse walked in, she would ask:  “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your pain?” This question.  Oh, how I loathed this question.  Nothing at all against the nurses—those post-partum nurses are WARRIORS in my book.  But my goodness, that question.  Over and over and over again. 

I liken that concept to mental health.  Over and over again, we need to be asking ourselves:  “On a scale of 1-10, how would I rate my emotional state?”  I have a more difficult time, however, conceptualizing my emotional state onto a numerical scale, so I have created a Mental Health Measuring Stick that I use to track my emotional state, based on my behavior.  By rating certain aspects of my behavior, I had better insight into my emotional state. 

What I needed to do was take notice of these things to better understand myself.  Mood is a very complex state, with many variables and pieces to the whole.  Why does understanding myself matter anyway?  I’m glad you asked.  😉  When I have a better understanding of where my emotions are, I can make decisions accordingly.  For example, if I find myself in a state of chronic frustration with my spouse, maybe we have not been prioritizing date night or spending quality time together.  If I find myself extra cranky and “deprived”, perhaps I have not been making space for quality time with friends or spending time on hobbies I love, that fill me up.  Or maybe I need to increase my water intake or time spent exercising.  Perhaps at certain times of the month (my apologies to the men reading….), I notice fluctuations in my mood.  Maybe I notice the benefits on my energy level during times that I consistently workout.  This shows us that a significant benefit of tracking our moods is to notice any patterns that emerge from the data.

As I have worked on this over the years, I have become more in tune with my emotions, and perhaps this FREE 5-minute mood tracker will help you do the same!

A quick note before we go over the tool: you should maintain regular physical checkups as appropriate for your age and any medical predispositions as your physical health directly impacts your mental health. I recently found out that I have a chronic health condition that significantly impacts my mood. This is helpful information to me, so that I am aware of the source of some of my low energy levels, etc.

Now moving on to the tracker that I created just for you! It has three parts:  Behaviors, Red Flags, and Feelings.  Let’s dive in to each of these categories a bit more.  If you haven’t gone to download the file, you will probably want to do that to follow along with this next part.

The heading begins with date, and you can add the time if you like.  This is written to be completed at night, with “hours of sleep” being the previous night’s sleep.  However, you can complete it in the morning as well and then I would suggest entering data based on the previous day. 

Behaviors

The actions we take each day have a significant impact on how we feel.  Not rocket science, right?  But it’s amazing how often we still don’t do the thing that make us feel good.  What I have found is that if I have “evidence” that these actions make me feel better that I am more likely to do (or not do) them.  Sometimes we also aren’t aware that certain behaviors make us feel better or worse.  I included behaviors in this tracker that have an impact on my mood, and you can certainly customize it for yourself.  The behaviors I have included consider what you put into your body as well as how you spend your time.  As I have tracked this data for myself over the months, I have found three things to be the most significant:  the amount of water I drink, the amount of alcohol I drink and exercise.  Guess what I have done based on that?  Increased my daily water intake.  Cut out 100% of alcohol.  Move my body in some way as often as possible.  These might look different for you—and that’s ok.  The point of this tracker is to learn what YOU can do to improve your score on that “how is your emotional state doing today”? scale.

Feelings

This section is pretty self-explanatory.  What I would encourage you to do is to put a star next to your desired feelings.  If they aren’t on my list—add them!  Then as you use this tool, you can circle your current emotions and compare your behaviors on days that you met your desired feelings to days that you did not so that you can incorporate more behaviors that result in how you want to feel. (This might be more helpful for some people to do last, after reviewing red flags"). You choose. No one else will be looking at this besides you, so feel free to be completely honest.

Red Flags

As you will see, this area of the tracker is a free-writing box for you to insert your own items.  What “red flags” is referring to is the areas of your life that you notice when you are not mentally/emotionally at your best.  To give you a point of reference, here are mine:  can’t seem to accomplish one task; taking frequent naps; not sleeping well at night; snapping at my children or husband.  Any one of these items is not a huge deal, but when I am using this tool, I can see that they are happening and try to correlate these to my behaviors to see if I can improve my mood.  Which will then ultimately point you back to the Feelings section of the tracker.

This can be done daily, but it does not have to be in order to be useful.  Let’s not get perfectionistic about it, but do it as often as you can.  Print out several copies and keep them next to your computer, on your nightstand, or folded up in your Bible.

I sincerely hope that this FREE 5-minute mood tracker is helpful for you!  I would love to hear what you think!

**If you or a loved one has intention to harm themselves or someone else, call 911 immediately. **