A mood tracker PDF you can hand to your therapist
This mood tracker PDF is the clinician-friendly variant — a 1–10 rating, sleep hours, medication adherence, and a short symptom checklist. Print it monthly, fill it in nightly, bring it to your appointment. Or do the digital version on iPhone in five seconds.
| Date | Sleep | Meds | Mood | Symptoms | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5/14 | 7h | ✓ | 5 | A · L | tired |
| 5/15 | 5h | ✓ | 3 | A · I · L | argument |
| 5/16 | 7h | ✓ | 6 | — | good walk |
| 5/17 | 6h | missed PM | 4 | A · R | side eff. |
| 5/18 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 5/19 | — | — | — | — | — |
Get the PDF
One page per month. Six columns. Two minutes a day. No email needed.
What's on the page
One row per day, thirty-one rows per page, six columns. The format is modeled on the daily mood logs that psychiatry and primary-care teams use to make medication and treatment decisions. It's deliberately denser than the journal-style templates on this site — the audience here is a clinician scanning thirty days in ninety seconds, not a person re-reading their week.
The six columns:
- Date — printed for the month so you can't lose track of a missed day.
- Sleep — hours, plus a tick if you slept poorly. Sleep is the single strongest correlate to next-day mood; leaving it blank wastes half the chart's value.
- Medications — a check for each scheduled dose, or "missed" with the time. If you're on a regimen change, this column matters more than mood.
- Mood — a 1–10 rating (1 = worst day in memory; 10 = the best you can imagine). The wider scale matters because clinicians look for swing magnitude, not just direction.
- Symptoms — short codes for the day's notable symptoms: A (anxiety), L (low energy), I (irritability), R (racing thoughts), H (hopelessness), S (suicidal thoughts), SE (side effect). The legend prints at the bottom of the page.
- Notes — five words max. Reserve this for things the codes don't capture (an argument, a new prescription, a missed dose, a side effect that started today).
How to use the PDF before an appointment
The chart is only useful if you arrive with it filled in. Five steps from print to appointment.
- Print one sheet per month. The PDF is a single page per calendar month. Print at the start of the month and clip it to a folder you already use — most people fail this step by losing the sheet, not by missing entries.
- Fill it in at the same time daily. Best window is the evening — sleep is fresh enough to estimate the prior night, mood has settled. Two minutes per day is the cap.
- Be honest in the symptoms column. If a symptom was there at all, mark the code. Underreporting in a chart you'll show a clinician is the most common (and least helpful) mistake.
- Skim the page the morning of your appointment. Circle two or three rows that stand out — the worst nights, the missed-medication days, the days a side effect started. Those rows are the conversation, not the whole chart.
- Bring the sheet, not your phone. Most clinicians can read a one-page sheet faster than they can swipe through an app. Hand them paper; the conversation moves quicker.
Why a clinician will actually look at it
Most clinicians ask three questions in an appointment: how have you been since I last saw you, are you taking the medication as prescribed, and is anything new. A filled-in one-page chart answers all three before the visit starts. It's faster than memory (memory drifts toward recency and toward the dramatic), more honest than self-report (you're committing to numbers a week before, not a feeling in the moment), and more specific than "I've been pretty good."
The published clinical literature on daily mood charts is strongest for bipolar disorder, where the magnitude and timing of swings drive medication decisions, but the same format helps with depression and anxiety treatment as well. The NIMH overview of treatment for mood disorders explicitly recommends symptom tracking as part of care (NIMH). The affect-labeling research on naming feelings adds a second, smaller benefit: even the act of filling the chart in measurably lowers the day's stress response (Lieberman et al., 2007).
When this PDF isn't the right fit
Two situations where a different format will serve you better.
You're not in active treatment. If you're tracking on your own, this chart is overkill — six columns where two would do. Use a lighter format and reserve this one for if and when you start working with a clinician.
You skip more than half your days. The clinical chart's strength is density; its weakness is that a half-filled sheet looks worse than no sheet at all. If you're missing more than half the days at week three, downgrade to a single-field tracker (mood only, nothing else) and earn your way back to the full chart.
A clinical chart is a tool for people in treatment. It isn't proof that you take your mental health seriously, and a blank page doesn't mean you don't.
Variations and related templates
If you want a similar format with a different emphasis:
- Mood journal PDF — the writing-first cousin. One line per day, no clinical codes. Good if you want to remember days, not just rate them.
- Mood sheet — a single half-page summary that pairs with this PDF on appointment day. Useful if your clinician prefers a one-glance summary over a full month.
- Mood diary worksheet — a structured worksheet some therapists assign between sessions. More space for cognitive-behavioral reflection than this tracker has.
For the broader practice, see how a clinical chart fits alongside a feelings journal for vocabulary, or with long-form journaling for events that need more processing. The complete mood journaling guide covers the spectrum from "fine, 3, slept well" to a full clinical log.
FAQ
Where do I download the mood tracker PDF?
The PDF is a free one-click download at the top of this page. No email, no signup. One page per calendar month — print a few in advance and clip them to a folder.
Is this PDF clinician-approved?
It's modeled on the format many therapists and psychiatrists already use — daily mood rating, sleep, medication adherence, symptom checklist — but it's not a formal clinical instrument. If your clinician has their own preferred mood chart, use theirs and treat this as a backup.
Should I fill it in daily even if I don't feel like it?
Yes — especially on days you don't feel like it. Missed days hide exactly the data your clinician wants to see. A single-letter entry on a hard day beats a blank row. If you keep missing more than half your days, switch to a lighter format like the mood journal template.
Can I use this for someone else, like a child or a parent?
Yes, with consent. Caregivers often fill these in for a parent with dementia, a child being assessed for ADHD or anxiety, or a partner whose memory is unreliable on a particular medication. Note in the margin who's filling it in — the clinician will want to know.
Not medical advice. This chart is a self-tracking tool, not a diagnostic instrument. It does not replace clinical assessment, prescription decisions, or therapy. If you're in crisis in the US, call or text 988. If you're concerned about your mental health, talk to a licensed clinician.