How to Check In With Yourself: A Two-Minute Daily Practice

Short answer: to check in with yourself, pause once a day, at the same time if you can, and answer three questions honestly: how does my body feel, what is the main feeling right now, and what do I need next. Write the answer down in a word or a sentence. Do not try to fix anything. The point is to notice, and to have a record you can look back on.

That is the whole practice. It takes about two minutes, and it works better daily and brief than weekly and thorough. Below are the questions that make it easier, how to do it when you have no idea what you feel, and what a mood tracker app adds (and what it doesn't).

Why bother checking in with yourself

Because most people only ask how they are when someone else asks first, and then they say “fine”. Fine is a social answer, not an emotional one. A run of days that were all “fine” can hide a slow slide that you only notice when it is already big: snapping at someone, crying in the car, a weekend where you could not get off the sofa.

Naming a feeling also does something on its own. A 2007 UCLA study led by Matthew Lieberman found that putting feelings into words, which researchers call affect labelling, reduced activity in the amygdala, part of the brain's alarm system, compared with other ways of responding to the same images. You are not only observing your mood when you name it. You are turning the volume down slightly. There is more on this in why writing down your feelings works.

How to check in with yourself daily

1. Pick a fixed moment. Attach it to something you already do: the kettle in the morning, the bus home, brushing your teeth. A check-in tied to a habit survives; one that depends on remembering does not.
2. Start with your body. Shoulders, jaw, stomach, energy. The body often knows before you do. “Tight chest, heavy eyes” is useful information.
3. Name the main feeling. One word. If “fine” comes out, go one step further: fine and calm, or fine and flat?
4. Ask what you need. Food, sleep, a walk, to talk to someone, to say no to something. Not a plan for your life, just the next small thing.
5. Write it down. A note, a journal, an app. Two lines is enough. The writing is what turns a passing thought into a pattern you can see later.

Questions to check in with yourself

You do not need all of these. Pick two or three that fit the day, and swap them around when they start getting automatic answers.

The body

• Where in my body do I feel today?
• How did I sleep, honestly?
• Have I eaten properly, had water, been outside?
• What is my energy out of ten?

Feelings

• How am I, in one honest word?
• What has been sitting underneath today?
• Is there a feeling I have been talking myself out of?
• What am I looking forward to, even a little?

Needs and energy

• What took most of my energy today?
• What gave me some back?
• What am I avoiding?
• What would help, even slightly, in the next hour?

People

• Who did I actually talk to today, not just message?
• Did I say what I meant, or what was easiest?
• Is there someone I want to reach out to?

How to check in with yourself emotionally when you don't know what you feel

This is common, especially if you grew up somewhere feelings were not discussed, or you are the person everyone else leans on. You ask “how am I?” and get static.

• Use a scale instead of a word. Great, good, okay, low, rough. Picking from five options is far easier than producing a word from nothing.
• Start with the body. If you cannot name the feeling, name the sensation and let the word come later.
• Finish a sentence. “Today I wish someone had…” or “The thing I keep thinking about is…” Sentence starters get around the blank.
• Look at what you did. Cancelled plans, doomscrolled until 1am, cleaned the whole flat? Behaviour often says what words can't.

If you keep finding that you cannot name anything for weeks, that is worth paying attention to. Signs you're bottling things up covers what that can look like.

How a mood tracker app helps

A mood tracker app is a check-in with a memory. The main thing it gives you is patterns, which human memory is bad at. Looking back, most of us remember the last few days and the most dramatic ones, not the average.

• You see the shape of a month. Three rough days in a row stand out on a calendar in a way they don't in your head.
• You find links. Low days after short nights, or every Sunday evening, or after seeing one particular person.
• You have something to show someone. If you ever talk to a GP or therapist, “most days in the last month were low” is clearer than “I've been a bit off”.
• It lowers the bar. One tap is a check-in you will actually do on a bad day.

And its limits

• It does not diagnose anything. A run of low days can be tiredness, grief, a hard month at work, or something that needs a doctor. The app cannot tell which.
• Five options flatten things. You can be relieved and sad on the same day. The optional note is where the real information is.
• It can turn into a score. If you start feeling you have failed by logging a rough day, the tool is working against you. A rough day logged honestly is a successful check-in.
• Noticing is not the same as doing. The check-in tells you that you need something. You still have to go and get it.

Mood tracker apps worth knowing

• Daylio. You pick a mood and tick the activities from your day, and it builds charts and a year-in-pixels view showing what goes with your better days. Free, with a paid tier for extras.
• How We Feel. A free iPhone app made with Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence. Instead of a scale, it helps you find a specific emotion word, and suggests short strategies.
• Apple Health's State of Mind. Built into the Health app on iPhone. You can log how you feel right now or your mood for the whole day, and what is contributing to it.
• A notebook. Still underrated. A date and one line a day is a mood tracker. How to journal when you don't know what to write helps if the page stays blank.

Where Spillr fits

Spillr has a daily check-in called Trail. Once a day you pick Great, Good, Okay, Low or Rough, and add a note if you want to. Each day becomes a step on a path, so over weeks you can see where you have been, and there is a streak to make the habit stick. It is deliberately quick: the five words are there for the days when you can't find your own.

Trail is not a diagnosis tool, and Spillr is not therapy. If a check-in shows that you want to talk rather than just log it, you can post a spill under an alias instead. Spillr is free, on iPhone only.

When the check-in tells you something bigger

The point of checking in is to notice early. If you notice that most days for a couple of weeks have been low or rough, or you have lost interest in things you used to enjoy, that is a reason to talk to a GP or doctor, not just to keep logging. Your notes will make that conversation easier. And if you are wondering whether it is more than tiredness, this guide helps you tell the difference.