Tracking Diverse Feelings and Activities Encourages Self-guided Holistic Behavior Change

Abstract

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy highlights that people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected. Self-tracking, however, has mostly focused on a few emotions or activities. We created a mobile/web application to enable the users to track a broad range of daily activities and feelings in unison. In our 3-week study with 15 participants, the application improved the participants' self-awareness of their activities, feeling, and the correlation between their activities and feelings. Better self-awareness inspired personalized, self-guided, and holistic behavior change as the participants improved their self-care, daily planning and focus, and emotion regulation. Finally, the participants also developed a healthy and organized habit of self-reflection and even reflected on their holistic well-being and the meaning of having a 'good day'. Behavior change is usually treated as an external and isolated process but our research shows that tracking a broad range of activities and feelings can inspire self-guided holistic behavior change.