Diabetics monitor their glucose levels, heart attack and stroke victims monitor their blood pressure, lots of people monitor their weight and body fat ratio and health gurus monitor their heart rate during exercise. And what do we depressives monitor?  Nothing.  We don’t monitor our stress triggers. We don’t monitor our emotional reactions and we don’t monitor our mood.

Why not?

Through greater self-awareness we could identify changes in mood and recognise personal patterns of behaviour quickly so that we have a chance to react early and prevent a relapse instead of leaving it to chance.

There are several on line tools which you can use to monitor your mood and I find Moodscope particularly helpful. After creating an account (free) you answer 20 questions each day and your mood result is available immediately. You can even elect to send the results to a friend who can help you monitor and deal with changes in mood. By using Moodscope I often identify changes in my thinking and attitude which I haven’t yet noticed and put coping strategies in place to prevent a downward spiral. You also get a daily Moodscope email with useful hints and tips on how to deal with common stressors and how to implement coping methods. Moodscope has been featured in a few press and magazine articles recently as a good way of becoming “smarter” and psychologists are testing the tool to see whether it can be launched as an official aid to recovery.

MoodPanda is a free online interactive mood diary where you can create your own mood diary, rate and track your mood, view graphs of your mood and share your mood with others. I haven’t used this tool but know people who find it helpful.

If you are interested in monitoring your mood and finding out more about these on line tools you may also like;

My Mood Monitor

BBC Health-thought diaries