When people are getting back to a sport after a break, they often Build a baseline. This is done by doing some training to determine their fitness level. Once they have assessed their fitness, they can then set their goals to improve their fitness. If it is running, they could set a time or a distance that they want to achieve.
Another useful tool for determining a baseline for health is a Continuous Glucose Monitor, or CGM. CGMs are patches that you put on your arm that measure spikes in blood glucose during the day. You can find out how you react to the different foods during the day. For optimal health, it is recommended that you eat foods that keep your blood glucose at a stable level during the day, with not too many spikes or dips.
I am quite interested in these two concepts, and it got me thinking, can we do something like this for our mental health? I have some ideas on a way to do it. We can assess our mood on a daily basis by giving ourselves ratings on our moods using a scale. For example, I like to measure my happiness or anxiety. If I use a scale of 1 to 10, a number 1 could be sad or depressed and 10 could be extremely happy. If I was to measure anxiety, 1 could determine calm and 10 very anxious.
There is also a simpler way, by just using a scale of 1 to 10, where, for example, in the case of anxiety, 1 is calm, 2 is a little anxious but not too bad, and 3 is very anxious. The idea behind the scale is to firstly build a baseline. Make a diary and record your levels of your anxiety, happiness or other emotion you wish to measure and find out what you are like over a period of a week. You can then find out when you are more anxious, happy or calm etc than other days and look for reasons why this is the case.
You may be surprised at what triggers these feelings. It could be diet, interactions with people or work situations. Take the challenge and build a baseline for your mental health. I will start doing it again and let you know my results. I am sure that it will be a useful tool for you. It has been for me in the past.
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