I tracked my mood every day for one year.

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Hi there 👋 If you're new to my videos my name is Matt D'Avella. I'm a documentary filmmaker, entrepreneur and YouTuber. I've made a couple documentaries for Netflix. I also teach courses on everything from filmmaking to habit change. If you like to nerd out about self-development as much as I do, you can subscribe for weekly videos.

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[mattdavella]

I'm And I'm a dad now! More on that later 🙂

[jaroncole]

Waiting for the “I’ve been a Dad for 30 days” video! Congrats, your content always makes my day! 🎉💯

[LegoEddy]

I did the same (I'm a statistician and couldnt resist). Main findings:

- How I feel in the morning does not tell how I will feel in the evening
- Extraordinary things considered amazing by the public make my life rich, but do not influence my current hormon-based happiness. Do not feel disappointed if you experience something extraordinary yet do not feel "simply" happy.
- Getting useful things done is my key driver for happiness. To that end, define your tasks the evening before and wake up knowing what to do.
- Gratitude exercises are frustratingly effective.

[GlamGalactic]

I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 (well managed, these days), general anxiety disorder and a collection of other alphabet soup diagnoses. I’ve been tracking my moods and habits for almost four years now. I digitized all of my records, inputting them into a spreadsheet sorted by year, divided into months and days, so on, a few years ago.

In the beginning, my chart was fairly simple. I assigned a designation of 1-10 to each day, subdividing 1-4 as a “dangerous” or “evaluate and reflect category”, 5-7 as a fairly normal oscillation range, 6 as a baseline, and 8-10 as a “monitor and check in with yourself”/mania category.

Over the years, I’ve added stats like my weight, if I’ve done drugs or drank alcohol that day, if I had sex that day, how many meals I’ve eaten, a section for mood triggers and stressors, a section for my weight (divided into healthy and unhealthy ranges, I lose weight quickly in depressive states), as well as a section for medication changes, abnormal spending patterns, notes from therapy, etc. I think I track almost 60 datapoints these days.

Having almost four years of data at my fingertips, in that much detail, is transformative for bipolars and those suffering other mental health conditions. I’m able to pinpoint seasonal fluctuations and dips, notice when mania or depression may be kicking in, keep a tab on why I’m sleeping poorly or too much, draw correlations between lifestyle habits and mental health effects—it’s transformative. This tool should be employed by ANYONE struggling with, or managing, their mental health.

[tawsifakkas]

Congratulations Matt! I know it's super weird to be so invested in someone's life but having followed you for such a long time, it has been incredible seeing your journey (and learning a lot along the way) and have nothing but gratitude and best wishes for you and your family. I am sure plenty of your followers feel exactly the same.

Now when do we get the How To Minimalist Dad video?!

[lemontea]

The 'keywords' part of your tracking reminds me of "Homework for Life" (if anyone has seen the TED talk / heard ppl like Ali Abdaal talk about it). Basically it's if you had to give a 5 minute story from your day, what was the most storylike moment? and you write down notes for each day. The creator said it was the greatest gift he did for himself and that he soon began to see that his life is full of many stories (even the mundane moments), his life/days started to slow down, and he started to see more beauty and importance in his life than you didn't before. Been doing it for most of this year and definitely want to combine that with mood tracking!

[cheskamejico]

I used Daylio religiously while I started getting treatment for my bipolar disorder. Through tracking my mood, I became more self-aware and identified my triggers and my coping strategy. I loved it. 😊

Congrats on being a dad!

[emmapotter]

No one is going to comment on the head wall crush? That’s brilliant! Lost 3 hours work will ruin my day as well lol! Congrats for becoming a dad! So happy for you!

[WiWillemijn]

Watching this now, curious about your findings. I've found quitting tracking my mood was one of the best things I've done for my mental health. I had gotten way too obsessed with feeling good, and it made me feel bad all the time. Allowing myself to feel bad (not having the goal to feel happy) ultimately made me feel good again.

[kjfhjkjdnh]

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something in you that just attracts people to your channel, is it the style? The voice tone? The Sense of humor? The video making? Idk but thank you so much for being a YouTuber and an influencer it is the right place for you, keep moving forward❤

[sarastilleke]

We missed you, and congratulations on fatherhood! It’s a great idea to track your mood and feelings, it’s so easy to get caught up in the moment, but there’s definitely a value in recognizing trends, so that you can take action on them :)

[celiaescalante]

Tear is roiling down my cheek. What mood is this? I can smile.

[jimv]

Who else really loved the drywall scene at 0:11…congrats Matt and Nat…..

[TatiannaSpencer]

I appreciate the simplicity of your scale and summary together. I think this is a great snapshot of a day without being cumbersome.

[yourcalmplace]

- I just want to let anyone who’s reading this, and going through a tough time know that it’s going to be okay. You’ll get through it! ✨

[paoleonlopez]

Love it specially the crashing wall that literally has come to my mind when kids are yelling husband is sitting in the coach I’m at the ending of the day tired trying to
Get dinner ready 💯 relatable Thank you.

[Ryak]

Congrats on being a dad! Welcome to the club 😁

I've been tracking life metrics for the past 3-4 years, things like number of steps, if I ate dessert, whether or not I did something creative, etc. While my intent was to pull trends and see how I could improved (I did that for the first two years), now I use it more as a to-do list. With years I've added metrics and narrowed my scope to only track a dozen attributes, instead of the double. And I reward myself for successes. Every time I achieve my objective (wrote 100 words for my novel, which is all written now, btw), a formula adds $0, 25 or $0, 10, according to the difficulty. And when I want to buy a video game or a CD, I don't feel guilty, because I've earned it. 😀

[jishnuchatterjee]

Matt I cannot begin to emphasise just how much I love your videos. The content, the flow, the animations, the b rolls, the cinematography…. It’s just so clean and wholesome. In some strange, ridiculous way (one that I don’t completely understand) it makes me want to be a better man. Thank you Matt for all you do and create. You’re inspiring generations. And congratulations on becoming a father to both you and Nat! Wish you both all the happiness and health in the world!

[flowaaar]

Thought I‘m the only one who‘s doing that.
I write down whether I feel like I had an amazing, good, bad or „normal“ day. Remember: it’s not fact, it’s just how you feel about your day and any feeling is completely okay.
It showed me that by the end of each month and year that I actually had overall more good days than I thought.
We tend to memorize the bad days more and therefore we are quick to label a month or a year as „so bad“ when in fact often it had its normal ups and downs, and there were even amazing days we can be grateful for.
Regarding the bad days, I also wrote down just a few words WHY it felt bad, so that I can learn from it for the future. To my surprise, many times it’s just my own negative thoughts and reactions rather than an external factor.
So this experiment really worked for me!

[Joakimcomicscenter]

I was starting to rewatch old videos cause I needed more DAvella in my life, and here you are with a brand new video, yay!