Custom emotions in mood trackers are important

If you ask all scientists in the world to map all possible human emotions you will see just about the same amount of answers as there are scientists. In 1992 Paul Ekman found six human emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust and contempt. This paper was long accepted as the answer however in In 2017 a study found 27 different emotions. There are also a few theories which explain that while we are able to feel all kinds of emotions, these are all actually a combination of just a few primitive emotions. Like a math solution, a bit of happiness and a bit of fear could actually form a new emotion: excitement.

While the answer of emotions and the human brain is widely exciting a more practical solution to all this is to keep track how you feel. And for this we may want to keep a Mood Tracker.

How a Mood tracker works

A Mood tracker is any system that allows you to provide a rating in any way or form on a daily basis. This makes it easier to analyse how you are feeling in a more objective trend based manner. Smart mood trackers also analyse trends for you and will present info as you enter new data.

Fixed emotions

Most mood trackers have a fixed few options such as happiness, sadness, stress, anxiety or excitement. And while we can often get by on these options for a very long while, unfortunately, at one point they no longer suffice. For example maybe you have been feeling mentally devastated over a car accident a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t it be great if you can tell your mood tracker what particular feeling is hurting your mood. So perhaps it’s the icon of a car or simply the text “car accident”. Now image looking back one year from now. Would a dozen car icons tell you more than simply a sad face? Probably so.

Custom emotions are more detailed than pre-canned options. They can provide context and show events that matter in your mental health. This is especially important when you look back some time in the future.

Paper vs an app

Adding custom emotions is easy on paper, and often not present on app based solutions. This is usually because the AI mechanics or graphics need to know in advance what options can be provided as a mood. On paper it’s easy to just add something at will and stick to it. The challenge here is to remain consistent. If you use a car drawing or the world “accident” as a mood now, how consistent will you be two or three years from now?

How we can help

Luci: Mental Health has an advanced Mood Tracker built in. You can provide custom emotions to the app and it will remember your options now and however many years from now. It comes on top of a simple 1-5 or 1-10 scale option which is a great way to provide relativity to your daily rating.

To conclude

To conclude keeping a mood tracker is an amazing way to register how you feel in both the short and long term. Custom emotions can help you keep track of detailed feelings and events. Consistency here is key; if you use mismatch emotions you risk polluting the data.