Why measure your moods?

Any data of high scientific value is typically hard to capture. Mood is a rare exception. Largely ignored in any detail, moods are a signal to yourself, and to others, of how well you are doing. They give you a current snapshot of your health (homeostasis) and your ability to perform. They also predict your future mental health and ability to perform. Moods are highly responsive to your environments and can influence your thoughts and actions significantly. MoJo, used in conjunction with Scientist of Yourself® programmes, gives you hard data that you can measure, interpret and act on.

How to use this questionnaire

The science for the MoJo tool has been used to measure moods in a variety of contexts for over 50 years. To use it, simply indicate the degree – ranging from 'not at all' to 'extremely' - to which you are experiencing the feelings listed. In doing so indicate how you feel right now, as opposed to how you feel generally.

Why you need to be honest with yourself

The key thing about using MoJo is your honesty. It's very easy when completing a psychological questionnaire to indicate how you'd like to feel, or perhaps how you'd like other people to think you feel. But MoJo is only of any use if you are able to be really honest with yourself (and no-one else is going to see the scores so there's nothing to lose). For example, whilst we'd hope to feel energetic, active and alert most of the time, we all occasionally feel depressed, muddled, and even bitter. These are entirely normal human moods, so please don't be afraid to ask yourself the question 'How do I really feel' when responding.

How to interpret your profile

We want you to become a Scientist of Yourself®, so we're not here to tell you what your scores mean, but to help you make links between your mood and your personal ecosystem. Our moods are constantly with us; they are the outcomes of things such as sleep, eating, work, and your social and physical environments. But also inputs into these; for example, a poor night's sleep might leave you feeling quite anxious, tired and perhaps a little annoyed in the morning, whilst feeling anxious and annoyed as the result of a bad day at work might also make it hard for you to sleep that night. It's good to start to get a feel for how your moods act as both outputs and inputs in this context.

What do the scores mean?

Your profile presents aggregate scores for the six mood factors in the profile. The horizontal purple line represents the average score for adults. Most people seem to thrive on above average scores for Vigour (i.e., the Vigour level sitting above the purple line), and below average scores for Fatigue, Confusion and Depression (this has been termed the iceberg profile, as, like an iceberg, most of it sits below the metaphoric waterline indicated by the purple line). This makes intuitive sense, and on this basis, identifying factors that appear to influence levels of these moods above or below the white line is a useful exercise. Tension and Anger are interesting in that some people thrive on quite high levels of one or of both, whilst others can't cope with even low levels of either. Again, it's something we recommend that you start to work out for yourself.

How often should you use MoJo?

There is no right or wrong way to use MoJo. It can be used once only, simply to see what the scores tell you, or it could be used at the same time every day over weeks, even months, to see how factors such as sleep, food, workload, family life, people, environments, holidays and physical activity influence your moods (and of course the subsequent influence of these moods). In short, it's up to you how often you use it, but we will say that the more you do so, the better you will become at observing your own mood signals, and of understanding the inputs to and outputs from them. Over time, your ability to recognise and learn from your moods will become more automatic, and you'll find that you don't need to use MoJo to be a good scientist of your own mood signals.