Overview

Mood Manager has been designed by one of Australia’s leading clinical psychologists, Professor Timothy Sharp, and one of Australia’s leading software developers, Steve Goodwin, with the specific aim of helping people recover from depression, stress and anxiety more efficiently, more effectively and more quickly. 

Although many good therapies and interventions are available for people suffering these common problems, nothing currently exists for those undergoing treatment to quickly and easily monitor or track their progress.

Yet we know from the research that monitoring mood, and other related variables such as activities and thoughts, is vitally important as it can significantly boost the effects of treatment; and this is what Mood Manager is all about. It provides a simple yet powerful tool for users to record their progress and to identify what’s working and what’s not. 

So for less than the cost of one session with a professional, and not much more than a book or CD, you can significantly increase your chances of getting the most out of your chosen treatment method and you can substantially improve your chances of recovering, simply by signing in and using this easy, practical and user friendly program. 

Why should you sign up for Mood Manager?  Because, quite simply, it’s:

• Extremely good value
• Simple and easy to use
• Proven to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to progress – forgetfulness
• Fun and stimulating
• Both an effective reinforcer during good times and a powerful boost during the difficult times
• A great way to supplement your other mood enhancing strategies
• A fantastic record of your progress

Mood Manager also provides a range of practical tips and prompts to ensure users don’t forget to do what they need to do (a common problem), a strategy that minimises chances of relapse and maximises the chances of those progressing well staying on track. 

A list of features available to Mood Manager Subscribers can be seen below and it should be noted that all of these have been proven to be effective in the scientific research and in clinical trials:

Regular Mood Assessment

The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) is a widely used and highly regarded measure of mood (with, as the title suggests, three scales measuring depression, anxiety and stress).  Users can complete this as often as they choose and their results will be graphed to make interpretation of the results easy to view. 

Graphing

The daily depression, stress and anxiety measures are graphed over time which provides feedback showing how a person’s recovery is progressing. It is also possible to cross compare how certain other variables affect recovery such as new treatments, exercise, sleep or medication.

The graph also shows the interaction of depression, anxiety and stress with each other.

Today Console

The today console shows a person what they should do today to aid their recovery. It also allows the navigation between future and past dates to review past mood levels or future journal and event entries.

History

The history panel shows a complete history, by date, of mood levels, events and activities, treatments tried and all other variables tracked. The history display allows a person to quickly navigate through their past to see how things have changed over time.

Thought Analyser

The thought analyser has been taken from an approach known as CBT (or cognitive behavioural therapy) and it allows users to record what they were thinking and how they felt in different situations. It then allows a person to identify which thoughts might be associated more with negative emotions, and which thoughts might, therefore, be unhelpful so they can work towards changing these and developing more helpful thoughts and beliefs.

Event Manager

The event manager allows a person to record details about an upcoming event, along with the range of thoughts the person is having about the event.  This allows a person to see how particular events might be impacting on their recovery or how it just affects their mood in general.

Journal

The journal is a simple way to record what is happening in a person’s life, how they feel and what they want to achieve. You can think of the journal as an online diary and as with the other tools it’s then easy to go back through past journal entries to see how a person’s state of mind and mood is changing over time.

Activity / Exercise Tracker

The activity tracker allows users to track the range of activities, including exercise, in which they engage on a particular day as well as the amount of time they spent doing it.  This information can then be graphed and compared against measures of depression, stress and anxiety.

Sleep

The sleep tracker allows a person to enter in how many hours of sleep they had the night before. These values can then be graphed to show how they may be related to mood levels. The sleep tracker can also be used to create better sleep patterns by establishing a more helpful sleep routine.

Weight Tracker

The weight tracker allows a person to enter their daily weight which can be graphed over time.  This is obviously most useful for those users trying to lose weight or for those with specific healthy concerns. 

Coming Soon

In the near future the following features will be added.

Cost Benefit Analysis

The cost benefit analysis tool will allow a person to record a thought, and then rate the advantages and disadvantages of the thought. Cost benefit analysis is a great way to see that certain thoughts have more disadvantages than advantages. If it is found that a thought has more disadvantages then the tool will provide a way to rework the thought.

Shared Profiles

Shared profiles will a allow a person to share specified information with another person, such as a professional or maybe just a friend.

Medication, Supplements and diet trackers

These trackers will allow a person to track how medication, supplements and their diet interact with their daily anxiety or depression levels.

and more :)

We will keep adding facilities to Mood Manager based on feedback and research into what other tools will assist a person in their recovery.