A self-tracking experiment to prove, find and maybe even create new

theories about moods.

Carolina Ivarsson

Mood Theory

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April 14th 2012

I am not a unhappy person, just a curious person who often wonders,

what is it that makes me feel this way, or are expert theories always

right and how can things like mood theories be generalized when we

people are so different.

We all know that food and exercise have a huge effect on our mood and

how our body is reacting. But it is also very individual, so reading

about it has not helped me so far, it is time for me to analyze

myself and find answers myself.

I decided that for one month, March 2012, with the help of two apps,

my eyes and journal track my mood, food consumption, activities and

the weather. The process and answers are in this project, explore,

play and learn from graphs, maybe you will find something that suits

you as well as it suits me.

Take a peak!

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WHAT DOES THIS PROJECT CONTAIN

4. THE APPS I WAS USING

5. SELF-TRACKING RATING

6. EXPERT THEORIES

7. Mood and Food

8. Mood and Exercise

9. Mood and Weather

10. Mood and Wake up time

11. MY THEORIES

12. Mood, Food, Exercise,

Weather and Wake up time

13. CHARTS AND DATA COLLECTION

14. My Mood

15. Mood and Carbs

16. Mood and Fat

17. Mood and Protein

18. Mood and Exercise

19. Mood and Wake up time

20. Mood and Weather

21. ANALYSIS

22. Food

23. Exercise

24. Weather

25. Wake up time

26. FINAL MOOD INSIGHT

27. Second though

28. Insight statment

29. RECOMMENDATIONS

30. From me to me

31. From me to you

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THE APPS I WAS USING

MoodPanda, first thought? Are pandas happy?

I must say it is very easy to use, it only

takes a second to upload your mood.

Instead of liking another users post you can

hug their mood, if they are sad you can give

them a hug, nothing I liked. Felt weird.

Maybe I am not in it for the “mood commu-

nity” reason, more for myself. An average

app that does what it should.

Well, yes this has been my pal, a kind of

enjoying pal from time to time, I mean it is

keeping track of everything I do, but it

does do it good. What I like most about it

is that I can scan my groceries and it finds

it. I don’t like is the orientation, its too

much but when you get the hang of it its

easy enough for tracking your daily food

habits, tracking your exercise part-

not as good.

Rating:3/5 mood swings

Rating:4/5 mood swings

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THE APP USE

SELFTRACKING

ANALYSING

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RATE THE SELF-TRACKING EXPERIENCE AND TOOLS

EXPERT THEORIES

MOOD AND FOOD CONSUMPTION

“The foods you eat can help you feel better or feel worse,

in the short-term and the long-term.”

According to the most updated version of the “Dietary Reference

Intakes” this is how you should portion your daily intake. I have

been tracking my food from a diet plan of 1200 calories a day. And

according to that this is what my food intakes should consist off.

Eat like this and you will feel good!

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MOOD AND EXERCISE

There wasn’t a breakthrough in the phenomenon until 2008, when

(according to the New York Times) researchers in Germany, using

advances in neuroscience that reported that exercising gives a flood

of endorphins to the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood

changes, and the more endorphins your body pumps out, the greater the

effect is on your mood.

“You need both resistance training and cardio,”

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CARDIO

STRENGHT

MOOD AND WEATHER

Denissen study in 2008 come to the rather surprising conclusion that

there is only a very small effect of weather on mood - and this is

backed up by two previous studies, one made in 2000 by Watson and

another by Keller in 2005, too found surprisingly small or sometimes

non-existent effects of the weather on our mood.

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DOES NOT GET AFFECTED

YOUR MOOD

MOOD AND WAKE UP TIME

Imagine waking up on your own terms and having a lot of

time to prepare for work. Not only will you be able to think clearer

of the day’s goals, you will most likely be free of stress from

rushing. Rushing or cramming can be a source of stress. Hence, waking

up early or at least waking up an hour early will give you a bit of

leeway to take some time and be less stressed about it.

One of the great challenges of a happiness project is to think about

time Sometimes, making a shift like waking earlier or changing a

daily routine can make a big difference in your mood.

-Gretchen Rubin author of The Happiness Project

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MORE HOURS OF DAYLIGHT

GET MORE WORK DONE

TIME TO PREPARE

LESS STRESS

YOUR MOOD

MY OWN THEORIES

MOOD FOOD EXERCISER WEATHER & TIME IN MORNING

The food

I will chunk this up into on category. I do not know enough about

carbs, protein and fat importance for mood, YET, to separate them.

My belief is though that if you are keeping a fair balance with what

you eat, not eating to much of one or the other you will feel fine.

If you eat 1/3 of each from a various of different sources and eat

enough amount of it you will feel good.

The weather

I believe that sun makes you happy, the happy moments of my life,

that I can remember, have often been sunny moments.

The exercise

I believe that you feel better when you move and when you are active.

It does not have to be a matter of what it is that you do or how you

exercise as long as you move.

Wake up time

I believe that you will feel better if you wake up in time and soak

in the day. I believe that if you take your time in the morning,

without stress you have a good start of your day.

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CHARTS AND DATA

COLLECTION

MY MOOD

MY AVR. MOOD

GLOBAL MOOD

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

My Mood

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

CARB INTAKE

WHAT I SHOULD EAT

Mood from Carbs

FAT INTAKE

WHAT I SHOULD EAT

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Mood from Fat

PROTEIN INTAKE

WHAT I SHOULD EAT

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Mood from Protein

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

STRENGTH

CARDIO

GOLF

Mood from Exercise

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

WAKE UP TIME

am

Mood from Wake up time

SUN

PARTLY CLOUDY

CLOUDY

RAIN

Mood from Weather

ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS ON EXPERTS FOOD THEORIES

I do not need to eat accordingly to experts percentages to feel good.

My patterns of when I felt great and when I felt really bad seams to

have nothing to do with my food intake.

Ex (shown on chart below) If I eat imbalanced as it is shown here,

too much of my protein, to little of my carbs and okay with my fat, I

still was in a good mood.

ANALYSIS ON MY FOOD THEORIES

Same here, well yes if I do eat balanced I felt good most of the

times but there were no guarantee for that to happen.

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ANALYSIS ON EXPERTS EXERCISE THEORIES

Sometimes I felt great when working out alot, sometimes I did not.

Sometimes I felt better when doing only cardio, but also when I did

both. Sometimes I felt even better when I was doing nothing at all.

Exercising gets me in shape and to stay healthy but not a must for me

if I want to be in a good mood.

ANALYSIS ON MY EXERCISE THEORIES

So no, I can feel equally as good going a day without exercising as a

day when I do. I saw that when I was playing golf and did strength

training at the same day, I was always feeling below my average mood.

Note to myself: Golf and workout does not mix well when trying to

stay in a good mood.

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ANALYSIS ON EXPERTS WEATHER THEORIES

The experts were right, weather does not affect me that much.

My mood did not depend on the weather at all, I felt good even great

when it was raining, or cloudy, or sun or just a little bit off sun.

This is how it could look:

ANALYSIS ON MY WEATHER THEORIES

So I was wrong then, sun does not necessarily make you happier.

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ANALYSIS ON EXPERTS WAKE UP TIME THEORIES

Yes, most of the days when I gave myself a little more time in the

morning I ended up having a good mood, but note this was not all the

time, the pattern was not overwhelmingly stated, I was not always a

happy camper during the day when I woke up early in the morning.

It could look like this:

ANALYSIS ON MY TIME IN THE MORNING THEORIES

Me and the experts agreed on this one, and well yes we had both right

and wrong. The time in the morning is not a given factor for good mood.

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7 AM -

FINAL INSIGHT

SECOND THOUGHT OF HAPPINESS AND GOOD MOOD

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After tracking at myself, compairing my mood against these different

components to see if I could find a pattern of what makes me happy,

what makes me in a bad mood, what if I exercise and I give myself

more time in the morning, is when I feel the best.

I wanted to find patterns showing what I personally can do to make my

mood good, make it stable and find a way of living.

I DID NOT FIND PATTERNS OF WHAT MAKES MY MOOD GOOD

I did not find a pattern for any of the components. Which made me

think about what it really is that makes me happy. SO WHAT DOES?

What makes me happy is working hard on a project and going in to the

classroom, presenting and get great feedback.

or when I am with my friends and family

or when I sink that last put on the 18th hole to win a tournament,

or when I just accomplish my to do list for the day.

That makes me in a good mood, other people, things and situations.

I wanted to see if this was true for more people then me so I started

asking people what it was that made their mood good. And it was what

I expected, not any of these components that I tracked.

(watch the mood theory film to see the answers)

MOOD INSIGHT:

YOU CAN NOT DEPEND YOUR MOOD ON THESE COMPONENTS!

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So many things happens around us everyday that can change our mood

even though we have done everything we should to set up ourselves for

a good mood.

When I ate well and when I exercised and a presentation suddenly go

bad my mood can within a minute go from great to horrible.

It is not what you do to yourself, it is what external situations,

people and happenings around you that make you feel like your walking

on clouds, or that makes you want to dig your head in the sand.

INTERACTIONS are what makes us feel good or bad,

and it is highly INDIVIDUAL!

RECOMMENDATIONS

FROM ME

FROM ME TO ME

- Do not focus on “I need to eat more carbs then protein” or try to

keep a balance on what it is that you are eating. If you one day

decide that; today is a protein day, well then cut down on either fat

or carbs to balance it out.

- Don’t exercise to much, take one thing a day rather then squeeze in

two activities a day. And do more cardio workouts.

- Give yourself time in the morning- DO NOT set yourself up for a bad

mood just because you can not get out of bed in time, set the alarm

even a bit earlier that you want to.

- Go out with a smile on your face even though it is raining, because

guess what, you just proved weather does not effect you.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL OVER YOUR MOOD

now you know what to do, do it and become an even happier person.

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THINK ABOUT

WHAT IT IS THAT

MAKES YOU HAPPY

WHAT IS TRUE FOR ME DOES NOT NEED TO BE TRUE FOR YOU

Thank you!Carolina Ivarsson

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