Mood Watch is a new mobile application, available on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android devices, that empowers people who suffer from mood disorders like anxiety, depression, bipolar, borderline, and post-traumatic stress disorders with tools that can help them live happier and more productive lives.
–What if there was a quick and precise way to size yourself up, mentally, emotionally and physically, three times a day? What if you could also have a reminder to take your vitamins and medications? And what if you could accurately chart all of this information–including how you feel, how you’ve been sleeping, meditating, to review for your own understanding, or with your doctor or therapist? This might help you start to pull your life together. Mental Health is for Everyone.
– Kimberly Knox
Created by inventor and bipolar patient, Kimberly Knox, this mood tracking app makes it easy to better understand one’s state of mind for personal reflection or for discussion with a physician or therapist.
More than a simple depression-, or anxiety-tracking app, Mood Watch makes it possible for anyone to play a proactive role in their overall well-being by giving them the power to closely track their feelings throughout the day, every day.
“I want to applaud you for your giant undertaking in terms of understanding the connection between internal reactions and their effect on mood and our body systems. Something I have been trying to achieve for decades. It looks like you are doing a great service and I totally enjoyed working with it.” Dr. L.
Mental health is for EVERYONE!
Brought to you by Invitation Only, LLC, Mood Watch is available for anyone who wants to take a proactive role in their mental, emotional and physical health.
What does it track on a daily basis?
Mood Watch helps you keep track of your well being on a daily basis.
(Click each heading to view more)
Overall, how are you feeling today?
If you tap your finger on “unknown,” you’ll see an odometer-type image starting with unknown, excellent and great that goes all the way down to not so good and terrible.
How you feel on a daily basis is incredibly important. If you select not so good or terrible, a colored dot will appear under this date on your personalized weekly report (see “Report” section).
A brief word before you make your selection: You may know how you feel, but as you look up and down the list of words to select ask yourself if you could feel better right now. If your answer is no, keep your selection and then select done.
How many hours of sleep last night?
Select your best guess.
Quality of sleep?
Your quality of sleep is incredibly important. When answering this question just call it like it is. Selecting “Fair” or “Poor” will create a colored dot under on your personalized weekly report.
Blood Pressure Before & After Meditation
The goal here is to make sure the technique you use to measure your blood pressure before and after meditation is consistent. Be sure to measure it the same way every time, then record your vital signs.
Meditation
If you have extra time on your hands by all means spend it on meditation. If you’re short of time and have a lot on your mind, however, even a 3 – 5 minute meditation can turn your day around. Just close your eyes, focus within and pay close attention to your breathing. Focus on the present moment only because, in truth, this is the only moment that ever really exists.
I like to set the timer on my phone to bring me back with the gentle sound of a harp.
Click here to purchase our recommended Blood Pressure Monitor on Amazon.com
Record your vital signs.
If you don’t notice a difference, you will, with practice. Make sure your blood-pressure technique is the same every time.
Anxiety
(0 = best/no anxiety)
The easiest chart of them all. Do you or don’t you feel anxious? It’s that easy. If you do feel anxious, refer to the chart on Focus/Mindfulness below to reduce your anxiety level.
Mood
(0 = centered, + = up, – = down)
Three times a day, you’ll touch the white “button” under morning, noon, or evening. You’ll then slide it to the place on the scale that represents your mood. Once you make a selection on this scale (and on the remaining scales throughout Mood Watch) ask yourself if you might be feeling better or worse. If your answer is no, keep your selection and move on to “Calm.”
Calm
(0 = calm, + = heightened sense, – = agitated)
Calm is what our brains are in a relaxed state. A heightened sense of calm is meditative and it can even happen in periods of real activity. Calmness, no matter what, is living in bliss and is the ultimate way to live.
Less than calm is agitation, which is simply unpleasant. It’s like walking with a stone in your shoe–or worse.
Focus/Mindfulness
(0 = Ideal, + = heightened, – = decreased)
This is probably the most important of all of the scales. If you have this one nailed the rest will fall right in line.
Ideal is when you’re focused on the present moment. The rest of the world can wait (past), or will have to wait (future). It’s what you do right now that counts. Try to start your day off at least aiming at 0 and keep aiming as the day progresses.
A heightened sense of this state will do wonders for your world and the worlds of others. This is so powerful. I try to start my day with a +1 as a promise to myself, and then I really try to keep it. If you can aspire to be just a little better and that feels right then go with it.
A decreased sense of “Focus/Mindfulness” typically leaves you feeling a bit confused or unclear. It’s a fairly easy state to move up a notch or two if you pay attention.
Energy
(0 = centered, + = heightened, – =lessened)
Here I’m referring to both physical and mental energy. A zero is very good! This is a simple state to manage. Feeling like you’re in a heightened state – enjoy it and make sure your other states are up as well (might as well have a good time)! If you feel like you energy is depleted take a look at your diet, sleep and everything else. You have the data in this program. Remember, this is all about you!
Customization
Mood Watch also offers you the ability to customize several of the measurement charts including mood, level of calmness, focus/mindfulness and energy level. For example, just tap on the word “calm” and change it to “joy” if you’d like to track this emotion instead.
Medications & Supplements
Here you’ll see today’s date and a category called “Name” where you can add the name of the medications or supplements you’re taking. The “Status” section refers to the time period you are scheduled to take your medications or supplements. (Under the “INFO” tab at the bottom of the screen, choose “Alarms” to enable up to 4 alarms to remind you to take your supplements or prescribed medication).
To enter a medication/supplement, click “Add.” This brings you to another screen. From this list choose “Select.”
The list begins with a multi-vitamin and follows with a list of prescription medications. If your medication isn’t listed you can add it manually by typing it under “Name.”
Dosage: A multi-vitamin dosage in terms of milligrams can be tricky. I take three multi-vitamins, so I simply enter the number three.
Choose the frequency.
Each med/supplement or med has to be entered separately, so make any notes, choose “Add” and you’ll go back to the prior screen with your new substance filled in! Try to enter them in the order you take them to make checking them off easy.
A note on “PRN” (as needed): This is anything you take on your own to keep yourself feeling well. It can be a prescription or not. It’s an indication that whatever you’re doing on a regular basis isn’t enough. PRN’s are scored differently to bring them to your attention. It’s not so much that you’re using them; it’s why you’re using them.
Report
The report features your entire week. If you’ve been using Mood Watch for more than a week, and you want to review your progress, simply scroll back-and-forth to see how far you’ve come.
If you want to isolate any one of the five states – anxiety, mood, calm, focus/mindfulness or energy – so that only one state is featured on your report, simply tap the categories you want to remove from the report. The colored “state” buttons are on/off toggles so tapping them again will turn them back on.
On this screen you will see colored dots which indicate that you may have started your day feeling mediocre, had less than desirable sleep, taken a PRN or skipped one of your meds/supplements. Keep in mind the “missed meds” dot will remain on your report until you have taken your last medication of the day.
Weekly Report
Suitable for framing (and it prints out beautifully on standard size paper), this lovely screen is the summary report of everything you’ve entered while using Mood Watch. If you’ve been meditating you will see a little green yogi in-between your before-and-after blood pressure readings. Your notes are here to help remind you how your day progressed. To read your weekly report more closely use just pinch-zoom to hone in on specific areas. You can also email it to anyone you’d like (including your physician, therapist or yourself). Also attached is a .txt file, a printable database of all the data on your weekly charts and graphs that can be easily imported into Excel.
Notes
Every time you write in the “Notes” section – whether it’s morning, noon or evening – be sure to include all the information you deem important.
