Mood Cycles

Another chart I thought was interesting. This looks at a “mood index” that I enter once per day. It is a purely subjective measure, where I just enter the first number that comes to mind, and try not to consciously think about it. Basically, 100 would be ecstatically happy to the point of uncontrollable glee, zero would be depressed to the point of not being able to function or move under my own power. As you can see, normally I’m in a pretty decent mood, in the 70 to 80 range on average with points outside that range a few times a month on either side. So these are variations within a fairly constrained range to begin with. But when you look at this chart on a six month range, where I then add a trend line smoothed over about an 18 day radius, suddenly you see what looks to be a clear monthly oscillation on top of the large scale mood trend.

It looks like, at least for the last six months, I have generally been happier and in a better mood in the first half of each month, and in a bit worse state of mind in the second half of the month.

Neat.