How We Calculate Your Patterns

Mood Trend

We compare weeks to weeks, months to months, and years to years for accurate mood trend data. All periods use calendar boundaries (weeks, months, years). This like-for-like comparison gives you the most meaningful insights about how your emotions are changing over time!

How We Calculate It (The "Apples to Apples" Method):

To ensure fair comparisons and avoid misleading trends, we use a special scoring system designed specifically for trend analysis. This prevents situations where you might have a higher overall mood in Week 2, but still be told you're "declining" just because one negative mood was logged.

• Daily Score Formula (Mood Trends Only): For each mood entry:
  • Positive Moods (mood value > 0): Always count as 100 points - regardless of intensity. This creates a consistent baseline for comparison.
  • Neutral Mood (mood value = 0): Counts as 100 points - treated the same as positive moods for trend calculations.
  • Negative Moods (mood value < 0): Uses the raw mood_value directly (e.g., mood value -270 = score of -270). No intensity adjustment — this keeps the trend scale consistent with the 100-point positive baseline.
• Period Average: Add up all daily scores, then divide by the number of days logged.
• Real-World Example:
  • Week 1: You logged 3 positive moods (100 + 100 + 100) and 1 negative mood (-15) = Total 285 ÷ 4 days = 71.25 average
  • Week 2: You logged 6 positive moods (600 points) and 1 negative mood (-10) = Total 590 ÷ 7 days = 84.29 average
  • Result: Clear improvement! Week 2's average (84.29) is higher than Week 1's (71.25), showing genuine emotional progress.

Why This "Apples to Apples" Approach?

Traditional mood scoring can be unfair for trends. Imagine logging mostly positive moods in Week 2 with just one minor negative moment - your overall emotional state is great! But if we used intensity-weighted scores for positive moods, that single negative entry could make Week 2 appear "worse" than Week 1, even though you felt better overall. By giving all positive moods equal weight (100 points), we're measuring the presence of negativity rather than nitpicking differences between good days. This ensures your trend accurately reflects your emotional journey - not just mathematical noise.

Special Case - All Positive Periods:

• 🌟 When a period has ONLY positive moods (or includes neutral moods with no negatives), that period gets an "Incredible" badge to celebrate your consistently positive emotional state!
• ✨ Note: Neutral moods (0 value) are treated as positive (100 points) when calculating averages for all-positive periods, since they represent non-negative emotional states.

Time Period Comparisons:

• Week View: Last week's average is compared to the week before's average.
• Month View: Last month's average is compared to the month before's average.
• Year View: Last year's average is compared to the year before's average.
• Like-for-Like Comparison: We always compare two complete periods for accurate, meaningful trends. We exclude the current incomplete period to ensure fair comparisons.

Two Types of Comparisons (Works for Weeks, Months, AND Years!):

We show you TWO different ways to compare time periods because each tells a different story about your emotional trends. This system works identically for weekly, monthly, and yearly comparisons:

• 📊 Actual Trend (All Days): This compares ALL logged days from each time period, regardless of which specific days you logged.
  • How it works: Sums up all mood scores from each period, divides by the number of days logged, then calculates the point change between periods.
  • Week Example: Last week you logged 4 days (Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat) with an average of 70.0. Week before you logged all 7 days with an average of 60.0. Your actual trend: +10.0 pts improvement!
  • Month Example: Last month you logged 20 days with an average of 75.0. Month before you logged 28 days with an average of 65.0. Your actual trend: +10.0 pts improvement!
  • When to trust it: Most accurate when you log a similar number of days in both periods.
• 🔄 Same-Day Comparison: This compares ONLY the matching mood logged days from both periods for a fairer "apples-to-apples" comparison.
  • How it works: Identifies which days of the week (or dates) you logged moods in BOTH periods, then only uses those matching days for the comparison.
  • Week Example: Last week you logged Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat. Week before you logged all 7 days. We compare ONLY Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat from each week. This gives you: +7.5 pts improvement!
  • Month Example: You logged 15 matching dates across both months. We compare only those 15 matching days from each month for a controlled comparison.
  • Year Example: You logged 200 matching dates across both years. We compare only those 200 matching days from each year.
  • When to trust it: More accurate when you logged different amounts of days. Controls for the variable of "which specific days."
  • Minimum requirement: Needs at least 2 matching days between periods to calculate.

💡 Pro Tip: The most accurate mood trends come from logging every single day! When you log daily, both comparison methods will show similar results, and you can trust your trend data completely. Inconsistent logging makes trends less reliable because we're comparing different sample sizes and potentially different types of days (weekdays vs weekends, etc.). This applies to weeks, months, AND years!

All Mood Trend Categories (Point-Based System):

• 🚀 Large Improvement (≥30 pts better) - Major emotional glow-up! Significant positive life changes.
• 📈 Moderate Improvement (15-29 pts better) - Solid upward momentum! Things are definitely improving.
• ✨ Small Improvement (5-14 pts better) - Steady progress! Moving in the right direction.
• ↗️ Slight Improvement (1-4 pts better) - Small positive shift. Every bit counts!
• ➡️ Stable (-0.99 to +0.99 pts) - Consistent emotional baseline. You're maintaining your norm.
• ↘️ Slight Decline (-1 to -4 pts worse) - Minor dip. Nothing to worry about yet.
• 📉 Small Decline (-5 to -14 pts worse) - Noticeable dip. May need some extra self-care.
• ⚠️ Moderate Decline (-15 to -29 pts worse) - Significant downward trend. Time for reflection and support.
• 🔴 Large Decline (≤-30 pts worse) - Remember: tough times don't last forever.
• 🌟 All Positive Periods (no negative moods) - Both periods were amazing! No trend calculation needed.
• 🌱 Building Your Baseline (not enough data) - Keep logging! We need more data for accurate trends.

Why Points Instead of Percentages? Point-based comparisons are more intuitive and consistent. A 15-point improvement means the same thing whether your baseline is 20 or 50, whereas percentages can be misleading when baselines are low. For example: going from +20 to +35 is a +15 point improvement (meaningful!), but would show as a 75% increase (sounds huge!). Points keep things honest and clear.

🛡️ Outlier Protection (Progressive Capping): To prevent one extremely bad day from dominating your trend, we use a smart capping system that scales based on how many negative days you had:

• 1 negative day out of 7 (≤15%): Point change capped at ±14 pts - One rough day won't define your whole period. Worst possible: "Small Decline"
• 2 negative days out of 7 (≤30%): Point change capped at ±29 pts - Acknowledging a pattern but still protecting. Worst possible: "Moderate Decline"
• 3-4 negative days out of 7 (≤50%): Point change capped at ±50 pts - This is significant, reflected more fully
• 5+ negative days out of 7 (>50%): No cap applied - This is legitimately a tough period, full impact shown

Example: You log Storm Cloud (very negative, say -270) once in an otherwise positive week where the other 4 days are all +100. Without capping, that's an average of +26 vs last week's +100 = a -74 point drop, showing "Large Decline." With capping (1 bad day out of 5 = 20%, ≤30% bracket), the change is capped to -29, showing "Moderate Decline" instead. Much more accurate to your overall experience! However, if you logged 4+ terrible days, no cap is applied because that period truly was rough.

When a score has been adjusted, you'll see a ⚖️ Score Adjusted note on the Mood Trend screen explaining why.

Important Note: Mood Trends do NOT use intensity at all — positive moods = flat 100 points, negative moods = raw mood value. This keeps the trend scale clean and consistent. All other features (Best Day of Week, Hardest Day, etc.) use the full mood value with intensity adjustment: positive moods = mood_value + intensity, negative moods = mood_value − intensity. This preserves accuracy in those contexts while keeping trend comparisons fair.