A mood check-in is a short pause, a minute or two, in which you ask yourself how you are and put the answer into a word or two. Three questions cover most days: How do I feel right now? What do I notice in my body? What do I need today? It isn't a test and it can't diagnose anything. It's a habit of noticing, and noticing is where most helpful changes start.
Below you'll find check-in questions for different moments, a weather chart for adults, a template to copy, and how our app turns a check-in into a meditation.
Daily check-in questions to ask yourself
You don't need all of these. Pick two or three and keep them for a few weeks, so your answers become comparable.
Feelings
- How do I feel right now, in one word?
- Is it more than one feeling at once? (Glad and tired, relieved and sad.)
- How strong is it, from 0 to 10?
Body
- Where do I notice tension: jaw, shoulders, stomach?
- How did I sleep last night: poorly, okay or well?
- How is my energy: low, steady or buzzing?
Mind
- How stressed do I feel right now, from 0 (calm) to 10 (overwhelmed)?
- What's taking up the most space in my head?
Needs
- What do I need today: rest, focus, company, movement, quiet?
- What's one small thing I could do for that?
Good things
- What's one thing that went well, however small?
A 1-minute mood check-in
- Stop for one breath. Wherever you are.
- Scan quickly. Head, shoulders, chest, stomach. Just notice.
- Name the feeling. One or two words. "Tired." "Restless and hopeful." The NHS suggests silently naming thoughts and feelings, for example "This is anxiety."
- Rate it. Stress from 0 to 10, or pick a weather from the chart below.
- Ask what you need. One word is enough.
- Choose one small action. A glass of water, a walk, a message to a friend, a short meditation.
Mood check-in chart for adults: the weather scale
Some people find a picture easier than a number. We use weather, because it changes by itself and nobody blames themselves for rain.
| Weather | What it might mean | A question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Sunny | Light, open, energetic | What's helping today? |
| Partly cloudy | Okay, a bit muted | What's the cloud about? |
| Foggy | Unclear, flat, hard to focus | What would make things a bit clearer? |
| Windy | Restless, scattered, a lot going on | What's one thing I can put down? |
| Rainy | Sad, heavy, low | What would be kind to myself right now? |
| Stormy | Overwhelmed, angry, too much | What do I need to get through the next hour? |
You can use the same chart as a "mood board" on a fridge or desk: move a magnet or sticky note each morning.
Mood check-in template to copy
Copy this into a notes app or notebook. It takes about two minutes.
Date and time:
Right now I feel (one or two words):
Strength of the feeling, 0 to 10:
Weather: sunny / partly cloudy / foggy / windy / rainy / stormy
Sleep last night: poorly / okay / well
Stress right now, 0 (calm) to 10 (overwhelmed):
In my body I notice:
Today I need:
One small thing I'll do for that:
One thing that went well:
If you fill it in every day for a few weeks, it turns into a mood journal. Our guide on how to keep a mood journal shows what to look for in your entries.
Morning or evening check-in?
- Morning mood check-in: helps you plan around how you actually feel instead of how you think you should feel. Good questions: How did I sleep? What do I need today?
- Evening check-in: helps you close the day. Good questions: What took the most energy today? What went well?
Pick one to start. A fixed moment, like your first coffee or brushing your teeth, makes it much easier to keep (more in our guide to building a meditation habit).
Why naming a feeling helps
Putting feelings into words is sometimes called affect labeling. In a 2007 brain imaging study (Lieberman and colleagues, Psychological Science), labeling the emotion in negative pictures reduced the response of the amygdala and other emotion-related brain regions compared with other ways of processing the pictures. That's one lab study, not proof that a check-in will change your day, but it fits what many people notice: a named feeling feels a little less overwhelming.
The NHS describes the same idea in its mindfulness advice: noticing thoughts and feelings helps you step back from them and see them as mental events that come and go.
How the mood check-in works in our app
In AI Meditation: Sleep & Calm, the check-in is the start of a personalized meditation:
- One open question. The screen asks "How are you doing right now?" You hold the microphone and tell it about your day, or you type how your day was and how you feel.
- A meditation written for that. When you tap "Create my meditation", AI writes a meditation for what you shared. It's labeled "AI-generated" in your list of meditations, the player tells you the voice is AI, and it isn't checked by a person, so it won't always be perfect. You can report a meditation that goes wrong.
- Style and length. You can pick a style for the meditation or keep the app's own calm voice. Free AI meditations are 5 minutes; Mindfulness Plus includes sessions of up to 20 minutes and several personalized meditations each day. How many you can create for free is limited, and the app shows what's left.
- Privacy, in the app's own words. Before the first check-in, the app asks for your consent: your check-in is sent to OpenAI and processed on servers in the United States, and if you speak it, the recording is transcribed there too. The app says it doesn't keep any of it afterwards. Your microphone is only used to understand what you said. On your phone, the app keeps a short history of your recent check-in texts, so a later meditation can refer back to what you wrote before.
- A safety pause. If your words suggest you might be in a crisis, the app doesn't write a meditation. It pauses and shows where to find help instead. That's a simple safety check, not a replacement for real support.
What AI meditation can do and where its limits are is explained in our guide to AI meditation. The app is in English and German. It needs an internet connection to create a meditation. See how the app works, try it for free, no account needed.
What a mood check-in is not
A check-in helps you notice patterns, but it's not a mental health test. It can't tell you whether you have depression, anxiety or any other condition. If your check-ins keep showing low mood, no energy or no interest in things you usually enjoy, take that seriously: the NHS advises seeing a GP if you have symptoms of depression for most of the day, every day, for more than 2 weeks.
Your health
This app is a wellness app and does not replace medical advice. If low mood, stress or worry last for weeks or make daily life hard, talk to a doctor. If you're in immediate danger, call your local emergency number. The NHS page on symptoms of depression explains when to get help.
Sources
All pages accessed on September 25, 2026.
- Lieberman MD, Eisenberger NI, Crockett MJ, et al. Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 2007. DOI 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x. Abstract read via Europe PMC.
- NHS: Mindfulness (page last reviewed August 17, 2026). Naming thoughts and feelings.
- NHS: Symptoms of depression in adults (page last reviewed July 5, 2023). When to see a GP.
- App behavior: AI Meditation: Sleep & Calm, version 2026.6.1, check-in screen, consent and safety texts as read in the app's source code on September 25, 2026.
