Our emotions define us as human beings. Emotions are created within the nervous system as a response to various situations based on previous experiences. As you might be aware, emotions can be positive and negative, often influenced by one’s personality, mood and temperament. To really get a sense of why you feel the way you do or to see how your emotions are changing over time, you may choose to log your health using an emotion tracker app like CareClinic.
Acknowledging emotions is necessary to maintain our mental health, even when these difficult to process. Suppressing emotions is never a good thing, as it can lead to the accumulation of anger or frustration. When we fail to express our emotions in a healthy manner, we expose ourselves to mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression.
An emotion tracker for better mental health
People use CareClinic as an emotion logging diary. The app helps in identifying and analyzing your emotions in depth using correlations.
Every time you experience an emotion, you can return to the application and create a diary entry. You should mention the event or situation that led to the emotion in question, as well as any other issues you are dealing with. For example, you can mention if you also felt sad, anxious or depressed. This is a journey towards yourself, and you should be willing to do the hard work, as tracking emotions will keep you away from mental health issues. Tracking your emotions is also a great way to be mindful of your day. Sometimes, it is easier to brush off our feelings without giving them the attention they deserve.
By using CareClinic as your emotion tracker app, you can gain clarity in your emotions. Use the built-in journal to get more organized and effective in identifying emotions and associated episodes. Strive to be as descriptive as you can, mentioning both positive events and negative situations.
Why should I track my emotions?
Our wellbeing relies on us understanding our emotions and associated experiences. As every situation or event will lead to different emotions, the key is to educate ourselves to react in the best possible manner. Tracking our own emotions might not seem like a big deal. In reality it can offer insight into the way we think and the behavioral patterns we tend to adopt. It is no longer the domain of teenagers, even seniors chose to now keep a gratitude journal to improve their happiness.
People exposed to trauma have difficulties expressing and managing their emotions. In turn, this plays a negative influence on future experiences, reinforcing a vicious cycle. Nowadays, there are also many different personality-type tests you can take. Different personalities might be better or worse at expressing and controlling their emotions than others. Personality types are definitely something to be mindful of when it comes to emotions. Moreover, therapists recommend paying more attention to one’s emotions in order to reduce the risk of emotional numbing (often associated with traumatic events).
It is Possible To Manage Mental Health
In the beginning, you might find it hard to analyze your own emotions. This is true especially if you are dealing with feelings of detachment. Analyzing your emotions is also difficult when you feel like you cannot express everything you are going through. The most important message to takeaway is that you are not defined exclusively by your emotions. Improving your mental health is not impossible, but it is a journey. It requires you working towards improving your emotional adaptability.
An example use of emotion tracking
You can use the emotion tracker or journal to record your emotions, but also to see how they affect your life. You can add information about the reasons why you felt a particular way. How you deal with situations and your motives for action are also both important. You might also want to compare situations to previous ones in the past. Keeping a record of your emotions allows you to compare your internal thoughts and initial reactions to similar kinds of events.
For example, many people have phobias, or irrational fears. You might be committed to reducing the control that a phobia has over your life, such as claustrophobia. When you first experience the fear associated with your phobia, record the experience in your health diary. Then, when faced with a similar experience of claustrophobia, you can reference your experiences in the past to determine whether you are handling your fear better. This is a perfect, practical use of an emotion tracker.
Adding factors that can influence emotional health
When you begin to analyze your emotions, you will discover that the whole image is quite complex. Every little thing you do contributes to your emotional health. Thus, you need to pay attention to your daily activities. For instance, did you know that we often use food to feel good emotionally? Or that we tend to sleep more when we are depressed?
With the help of the bullet journal integrated in our health app, you can track all of the factors that can influence emotional health. These can include your daily diet, associated cravings, quality and frequency of sleep. Also your level of physical activity (movement stimulates the release of happiness hormones), social life and stress levels easily.
If you are taking medication or supplements, you should record your adherence to those as well. CareClinic will provide you correlation reports and charts if there’s a positive or negative correlation between them automatically.
Reports to share with your therapist
The information you have recorded in the journal is summarized in charts and reports. You can keep these for your personal reference. However, you might also want to consider sharing that report with your therapist or caregivers. Healthcare providers might adjust your therapy accordingly, suggesting new therapy goals to be pursued or novel methods. The report can be exported as PDF document for further reference.
Emotion management, a challenge
If you suffer from mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder, you might find it difficult to manage your emotions. Aside from therapy, you can greatly benefit from trying the CareClinic app. These conditions definitely put a strain on your ability to manage and control your emotions. For some, CareClinic might provide the perfect base on which emotional organization can be founded.
Bipolar Example
For instance, if you are battling the bipolar disorder, you might have to deal with different emotions in accordance to each stage (mania or depression). You can refer to CareClinic as your bipolar emotion tracker, creating separated entries for each episode of mania/depression. What matters is that you use this opportunity to process the associated emotions in a healthy manner.
Logging Your Emotions Correctly
Therapists often draw attention to the fact that having emotions, either positive or negative, is always a good thing. A problem is created when the person in question opts for dysfunctional coping mechanisms. These in turn will affect his/her mental health.
Apps such as CareClinic allow us to examine emotional patterns, as well as the associated triggers. As we learn more about situations and events that lead to various emotions, we will also feel more prepared to make a change. We are finally equipped with the right tools to handle emotionally-heavily situations and improve our habits. The key is to develop productive coping strategies.
As you will work towards improving your emotional health, it is essential that you understand the connection between your mood and daily experiences. Anything can cause any emotion. Including the lack of sleep, taking certain medication or engaging in a physical activity. And it is our responsibility to be faithful observers whereas our emotions are concerned. (R)
Emotional dynamics during change
Take your time to analyze the emotions you are feeling throughout the day, and adding them into the application. Mention if you have felt sad, guilty or angry, how you came to those emotions and any dysfunctional thoughts you might have experienced. Be sure to record positive emotions as well, including happiness, joy, gratitude, hope, inspiration and elevation. Many of these emotions are related to events you will remember for plenty of years to come, so you need to acknowledge them as they occur. This is best suited to record in your health diary or emotion tracker app.
Journaling
As you are trying to change your life for the better, you will experience a whirlwind of emotions. In these situations, journaling is especially beneficial, allowing you to reach your goals. When using a diary, many people feel like they are in control of their emotions, thus being able to take better choices.
Whether you prefer using an app or a template, you can record emotions and identify triggers of different behavioral patterns. In this way, you can find out factors that contribute to positive/negative emotions, working towards creating more opportunities for emotional release and expression.
Managing Your Treatment with our Emotion Tracker App
You might also want to add information about the solutions you have tried, in order to manage your emotions more effectively. For instance, cognitive behavioral therapy can help people who suffer from depression, anxiety or chronic stress. It helps them acknowledge their emotions and develop effective coping strategies.
Other types of therapy might help one interpret stressful situations in an objective manner. Unfortunately, in most situations, distorted thoughts affect the way we process an event and the associated emotions. Therapy is meant to help us eliminate those dysfunctional thoughts and replace them with healthy, appropriate ones. Additional solutions include diaphragmatic breathing, meditation, relaxation and mindfulness.
Facts about emotions
- We know positive emotions are more often identified than negative ones. “Joy”, followed by “love” and “satisfaction” are the most common positive emotions.
- We know negative emotions such as “Anxiety” are the most common. Followed by “sadness” and “disgust”
- Men have the tendency to identify positive emotions, as opposed to women, who are more prone to acknowledging negative emotions
- Each person has 8 basic emotions – these are: anger, joy, sadness, disgust, trust, anticipation, fear, and surprise
- Depending on the level of empathy, one can borrow the emotional state of another person. Basically, emotions are contagious, especially when it comes to negative ones (such as the fear response)
- It takes approximately six seconds for an emotion to be absorbed in the body (from production in hypothalamus to absorption)
- Emotions, whether positive or negative, are associated with physiological changes, such as increased breathing and pulse, sweating, gland activation, etc.
Emotional Triggers To Look For
- In the ancient world, it was believed that each organ is responsible for a particular emotion; happiness was associated with the heart, fear with the kidneys and anger with the liver
- Advertisers reach their customers by triggering an emotional response with their commercials
- Colors can trigger different emotional responses. Blue is known for its calming properties, while red is considered stimulating and grey as dull
- We often reveal our emotions through our body language. For instance, if a person is lying, he/she might often touch his/her nose
- Over 10,000 facial expressions exist and expressed by humans
- There are over 18 different types of smiles, with only one type being suggestive of happiness (Duchenne smile). Most people use the smile as a form of deception.
Using an Emotion Tracker App to support Mental Health
CareClinic was developed for those who are looking to improve their mental, physical and emotional health. It is free to use, with a friendly interface and it is available on both iOS and Android. The app is intuitive and often recommended by anger management professionals along with psychologists. It can draw information from other apps and devices such as Apple Watch. This allows for an extensive portrait of your mental health. Notice the difference in your mental health with journaling.
