A mood journal is a short daily note of how you feel, as a number or a word, plus the things that might affect it: sleep, stress, what you did and who you saw. Two minutes at the same time each day is enough. After two to four weeks, you look back for patterns. It's a tool for your own awareness, not a diagnosis.
Below: how to start, a template you can print, 12 prompts, format ideas, and how to read your entries without jumping to conclusions.
How to keep a mood journal in 5 steps
- Pick a time. Evening works for most people, because you can look back at the whole day. Link it to something you already do, like brushing your teeth.
- Pick a scale. A number from 1 to 10, or a small set of words (low, flat, okay, good, great). Stay with the same scale so your entries can be compared.
- Add two or three factors. Sleep, stress and one line about the day are enough. Too many fields make it a chore.
- Write one honest sentence. Not a report, just the thing that stood out.
- Review weekly. Once a week, read your entries in one go. That's where patterns appear.
If you want a faster daily version, our mood check-in guide has a one-minute routine and a weather chart you can use as your scale.
Mood journal template (printable)
Copy this into a notebook or notes app, or print this page. We don't offer a PDF file.
Daily entry
Date:
Mood today, 1 (very low) to 10 (very good):
Mood in one or two words:
Sleep last night: poorly / okay / well, about ___ hours
Stress today, 0 (calm) to 10 (overwhelmed):
Energy: low / steady / high
What I did today (one line):
Who I spent time with:
What affected my mood most:
One thing that went well:
Weekly tracker
Week of: __________
Mon: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
Tue: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
Wed: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
Thu: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
Fri: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
Sat: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
Sun: mood __ / sleep __ / stress __ / note:
This week I noticed:
Next week I want to try:
Mood journal prompts
When one line isn't enough, pick one of these:
- What was the best moment of today, and what made it good?
- What drained my energy today?
- When did my mood change today, and what happened just before?
- What did my body tell me today?
- What am I carrying into tomorrow?
- What helped, even a little?
- What would I tell a friend who had my day?
- What did I do today just for me?
- Is there a feeling I pushed away today? What is it?
- What am I looking forward to?
- Who made my day easier, and did they know?
- If today had a weather, what was it?
For prompts that focus only on what went well, see our guide to keeping a gratitude journal.
Mood journal ideas: formats that work
- One line a day. Date, number, one sentence. The easiest to keep.
- Color grid. A calendar where you color each day by mood. Good for seeing a month at a glance.
- Two columns. Left: what happened. Right: how I felt. Helps you separate events from reactions.
- Morning and evening. Two very short entries if your mood tends to shift during the day.
- Notes app. Paste the daily template as a note you duplicate each day. Always with you, easy to search.
How to read your mood journal
After a few weeks, read your entries in one sitting and ask:
- Do low days follow short nights? Compare your sleep column with your mood column.
- Are some weekdays harder? Look for a repeating day, such as Sunday evenings or Mondays.
- What shows up on good days? Movement, people, time outside, a finished task.
- What's changed since last month? Small shifts count.
One caution: two things appearing together doesn't prove one causes the other. "I slept badly, then had a bad day" is a sequence worth noticing, but there could be a third reason behind both, like worry about something. Treat patterns as questions to explore, not conclusions.
Mood journal app or paper?
Paper is private, needs no battery and is easy to keep by the bed. A notes app is searchable and always with you. Dedicated mood tracker apps add charts and reminders. Use whatever you'll actually keep using.
To be clear about our own app: AI Meditation: Sleep & Calm is not a mood tracker and doesn't draw mood charts. It has a daily check-in that asks "How are you doing right now?", and you speak or type your answer. AI then writes a meditation for how you feel, labeled as AI-written. The app keeps a short history of your recent check-in texts on your phone, so a later meditation can pick up on what you wrote before, and it sends your check-in to its AI provider only to create the meditation. One of the rotating daily topics, "A Mood With No Clear Reason", is written for days when you feel off and can't find the why, and on any day you can describe that feeling in the check-in instead.
So a good combination is: track your mood in a journal, and use a short meditation on the days your journal says you need one. The app is in English and German. See how the app works, try it for free, no account needed.
When your mood journal says: talk to someone
A mood journal can show you something important: a low mood that doesn't lift. 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 journal can help you describe how you've been. If you're already being treated for a mood condition, use the kind of tracking your doctor or therapist recommends.
Your health
This app is a wellness app and does not replace medical advice. A mood journal can't diagnose anything. If low mood lasts for weeks or makes 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.
- 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, on-device check-in history and daily topics, as read in the app's source code on September 25, 2026.
