mood management with spreadsheets

Anyone else collect data like this to constructively improve their lives? I've been doing stuff like this for a while. I believe happiness is something that needs to be worked hard for, not some default state that most people seem to regard it as. Stuff like this keeps me accountable for factors which I believe increase my quality of life. I can go into more detail if anyone is interested.

>>29896 Hm, that's actually pretty interesting. I haven't heard of anyone using a spreadsheet for this before, but it's a great idea. If you stick to it I'd expect it to work pretty well.

this is an awesome idea, but i feel like personally i would have a hard time keeping track of all this data. am I correct in assuming the "O" column means orgasm? i knew someone who kept a masturbation log for about 2 or 3 years before getting a partner and going completely nofap.

>>29903 Thank you, it certainly helps me a lot. Feels like emotional "hacking" almost. >>29907 Thank you. I've done this for a while so I suppose it's easier to parse for me since this is all stuff relevant to my life. Basically I chose columns based on what I think makes the most profound change to my mood. O is orgasm yeah, initially it was just a fap column but i realized when i'm having sex regularly instead of masturbating to porn, I feel better. So I have P = porn orgasm, N = no orgasm, S = sex orgasm.

>doing workouts every day >mental illness medication >multivitamin >"""hydration""" >probiotic >cannabis What the heck? Is this how average first-worldler lives these days?

>>30077 hahahaha yeah basically

>>29896 Every time I did some of this my quality of life on a spreadsheet stuff it might have as well printed out YOUR LIFE IS HORRIBLE LOL bad day bad day bad day bad bad bad, day you slept 4 hours less than normal, sleep more, you're off schedule because you forced yourself to sleep more, you are 193 hours of sleep behind the average, terrible mood every day I'd rather have a time management system with none of this stuff, at least I can slowly do what I need to do without being reminded that my life is like kicking dead whales down the beach.

>>29896 As much as I have a hard time keeping up with things like this. I am going to try it and see if this helps.

>>30077 No need to feel self conscious. You can uplift yourself too. I don't mind giving advice if you need it. As context, I've been doing this for a while. There have been more and less categories as it's gone on. I am genuinely very happy every day and extremely physically healthy and fit. >doing workouts every day Yeah, with varying intensity. Sometimes I will just stretch and work on mobility. I consider that a workout as it's still improving my fitness. >mental illness medication It's just drugs. If I can afford it and it can improve my happiness without side effects, why *wouldn't* I try it. Right now I'm using sertraline. I have tried fluoxetine too but I didn't really feel anything from that. >multivitamin Yup, not sure what you have against that lol. >"""hydration""" why would you not want to be hydrated? lmao >probiotic there is a huge body of evidence to support a healthy gut biome correlating with mental wellbeing. Give it a shot for a few months see how you feel. You seem to be angry/intimidated by the possibility of proactive lifestyle changes, I would strongly suggest opening yourself up to it. I used to be like you and I was miserable too. >>30083 That's the point though. It's not to review or reflect on my day like a diary, it's to compartmentalize factors that contribute to my mental health so I can look at them objectively. If I'm seeing red on there then I know there's stuff I've gotta change. >>30124 Good luck! Hope it helps. Thank you for the replies everyone

>>30077 If someone wants to help themselves by turning their daily life into readable data than what's the issue? I don't understand people trashing others because they used something that works for them to improve their lives.

>>30358 >If I'm seeing red on there then I know there's stuff I've gotta change. My point was that it's only useful if your red stuff can change without changing your whole life. If all you are missing is hydration or taking your meds then yeah, sure, I have a reminder for that too. If you suffer from chronic insomnia and depression a weekly breakdown of your trainwreck of a life won't do much. Just like meditation doesn't help if you have actual insomnia or you are actually agitated. It helps as much as 'taking deep breaths' helps a woman in labor.

>>30405 Maybe you should try holding yourself accountable for your life and be productive instead of making excuses before even trying. Not trying to be insulting, I used to be there too. You will continue being depressed til you start being constructive with *every* aspect of your life, you don't have to do exactly what I do but I used to have the exact same mindset as you. >It helps as much as 'taking deep breaths' helps a woman in labor This metaphor is quite telling of your attitude; if EVERY aspect of a pregnant woman's physical health is on point for many years leading up to labor then yes she is going to have an easier time. Stop thinking in terms of instant gratification, some problems take months or years of consistent effort to solve. Wishing you the best solving your problems, I hope you can find some consistent way to life yourself upwards like I did.

>>30419 You completely misrepresented everything I said in order to represent my argument as being wrong, you must be American. I did not "make excuses before even trying", I have managed my life like this in various ways for more than 5 years. I will repeat what I already posted so that you cannot twist it into a different narrative: I can manage things like my "hydration" and being on point with other minor stuff, I can manage practical things like my to-do list, but none of this will ever help me get rid of things like my chronic insomnia problems, my other health issues and my depression. That soykaf is just there. The only way I can deal with it is taking sleeping aids or entirely changing my life. So to repeat my throwaway comment about this stuff: it helps if your problems amount to minor first world life adjustment things. If your life is garbage it only serves to remind you of the things in your life that are wrong and you cannot change. Because unless you are a rich kid whose problems amount to taking your vitamins every day there are problems you cannot change no matter how hard you try. If that were not the case everyone would be happy and successful in their own way, and people who work hard or are passionate about something end up receiving a reward for it. This is - unless, again, you live a coddled American life with minor issues or nonexistent issues like forcing other people to call you Ma'am because you like it better that way.

>>30423 I kinda agree with this anon. I really don't see the purpose of doing something like that, but if it helps you hey, more power to you. As you said, those are just minor problems that you have to deal with, and while it may be be helpful to track those things down, major issues can't be solved from a day to another.

>>30423 >You completely misrepresented everything I said in order to represent my argument as being wrong, you must be American European actually, not sure where that come from. You seem to be missing the point; this isn't a list of "problems" I have. I'm FAR from some rich coddled kid who only has his multivitamin to worry about. I have found that physical health is directly correlated to my mental health, I wrote this in the OP. If you must know I came from a damaged household where I saw my mother die, saw my father beat my mother regularly, grew up destitute and was abandoned from age 12. I am not telling you this to qualify my post but you seem to have misrepresented everything I said in order to absolve yourself from any responsibility over your own life. PLEASE for your own sake stop believing that mental health issues are "just there". I still have panic attacks regularly. Keeping order in my life and being responsible for my physical health was a one-way street to lifting myself out of a funk I thought was "just there". You can change, don't fear change. >The only way I can deal with it is taking sleeping aids or entirely changing my life. See, you said it yourself.

Why would a rich kid or anyone in the first world even need a vitamin supplement? Can't they afford to eat like normal food or something?

>>30778 in a lot of places, nutritious food is either too expensive or not available for pretty much everyone

>>30483 >See, you said it yourself. I don't have money to change my life. In fact, it will get worse soon because of reasons that are beyond my control. Of course mental health and physical health are connected, but all this yuppie soykaf, meditation, mood journals, it's the kind of thing that people with no real issues claim solves issues. You are also somehow implying that I put no order in my life because I think "mood journals" are retarded, when I said I use other kinds of scheduling for practical things. Due to this loaded assumption I honestly just don't believe anything you said.

>>30397 it isn't so much about their life choices or their tracking thereof, rather that these choices represent an average example of an 18-30 year old in the modern west. >>30083 There was a samurai who said that he kept a diary of regret and how it only worsened his mood because it just highlighted how many times he fuarrrked up throughout the day. Focusing on the bad can only make it worse. Focusing on the accomplishments for the day can help to improve your mood. I have a monthly calendar on my desk and every day I write what I achieved that day, both work and personal accomplishments. If I had to track all the bad things in life I would probably be well on my way to hard drugs or worse to try to escape my problems. >>30405 this. As far as meditating goes, you can practice breathing to suppress the symptoms of stress in elevated heart and breathing which can reduce overall stress, with enough mental fortitude you can suppress pain too. I had a doctor tell me it was amazing how I was still able to function with the severity of some injuries I had, but It was all because I would use breathing techniques to suppress the pain stress symptoms so I could keep going.

>>30789 OK! I hope you manage to improve instead of looking for excuses not to

>>30854 >it isn't so much about their life choices or their tracking thereof, rather that these choices represent an average example of an 18-30 year old in the modern west. I understand that now.

>>30854 You're looking at this through a backpats and instant gratification lens. The point isn't to reassure myself I'm doing a good job or reprimand myself if I'm not; the point is to have an objective record of my days' variables, which I can go back and reference any time I feel bad, so that I can understand why I feel that way, and come up with strategies for moving forward. I try to leave my judgement and opinions at the door when recording this. If I have to fill a full day in red then I'm not going to punish myself or feel bad for doing so. The other thing I feel the need to reiterate is that I am willing to concede that some of my categories may be misjudged. For example, if I was to fill in weeks worth of variables in red, and found that my mood records were still in the green, then I would know that none of these factors matter. But that's the good thing about having data; I find that not to be true. Take a look at the current data: there is a clear pattern between the diet and sleep columns and the mood. We can see patterns that imply worse quality dietary habits result in a dip in mood lasting two to three days. Honestly I've tried to resist the whole gluten-free trend for many years but having this data, as well as detailed logs of what I ate which I can cross reference with raw data from this chart; I can see a direct correlation between days in which I've ate a lot of gluten and dips in my mood. Does that PROVE that gluten is bad for everyone? No, of course it doesn't, and that isn't even the point. But it shows that there is a notable trend in my own body which is worth further investigation, and also reaffirms other ideas I've had about the state of the mind being directly linked to the state of the body. To round this up; I used to be very very cynical. Like you, I spoke in extremes and facts, certain that I had the answer to everything. I simply don't. No one does. It's very very naive to believe that any one person knows everything about the effects of modern society on the human machine, because history simply has not gone on this way long enough for anyone to know. I'll do anything I can to further my own understanding of myself regardless of how it makes other people judge me, the point of this thread was simply to talk about what I'm doing with other people, for my or their benefit. Thank you for reading!

>>31177 PS; It goes without saying that no amount of physical/mental health choices are going to fix anyone who is in a fundamentally bad place in their lives. Someone trapped in a jailcell is not going to see much benefit in anything like this. That seemed such an obvious aside that I never thought to mention it. I'm very fortunate these last few years that I've managed to get myself into a financially stable situation. The data ITT pertains only to physical maintenance.

>>31184 thinkpad t420 >>31185 I would never drink soy

>>31211 >I would never drink soy Are you allergic? Is it a $13 free-range organic activated almonds latte?

>>31215 I drink whole milk from a farm a short walk from my home. I dunno why you assume I'm rich. I make very little money and spend even less. It is actually possible to not be rapidly drained of your resources

>>31242 >I dunno why you assume I'm rich. Rich and a liar, because your entire life is made of inane stuff that only a person with nothing to do and money to waste would give a soykaf about, like walking to your local farm to get a bottle of milk do you do it after or before your daily bong

>>29896 this is something similar i used to do when i was in dialectal behavioral therapy; it just so happened to focus more on emotional regulation and coping strategies. i found it helpful, but i wasn't able to commit to tracking the data as well. what keeps you accountable? i really struggle with that.

>>31246 please seek help >>31279 that's a good question, I'm not 100% sure I have a good answer. I'd say the only answer I have is that I've figured out how to put myself in a nice enough place mentally that I don't have to freak out about trivial stuff like not keeping my kitchen spotless. Ironically, that helps keep it spotless, lol. my problem isn't neglecting stuff, it's overthinking about what happens if I do. I suppose the short form is that I'm relaxed enough to do all the things I need to do. Hope that makes sense