By Lisa Collier Cool | Posted January 10 2011
Free app offers insights into mood and emotional well-being
Emotions can have a potent effect on health. Last year, a groundbreaking study was the first to report that people who usually feel happy, enthusiastic and content have a lower risk for heart disease, even after age, gender and risk factors were taken into account. Other recent research involving more than 150,000 adults in over 140 countries links positive emotions to better physical health, even among those living in the poorest nations.
A new mobile app, Moody Me can help users keep tabs on their mood to gain new insights into their emotional well-being and potentially improve their health. Created by MedHelp, the world’s largest health online community, in partnership with GE healthymagination, Moody Me is a mobile extension of MedHelp’s online Mood Tracker. It is available as a free download on iTunes for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Moody Me offers a mood tracker that helps users record and update how they’re feeling as often as they want. It also allows them to take pictures of what makes them happy or sad to see the triggers for their change in mood. And if users feel glum, the slideshow feature lets them thumb through their “happy photos” to lift their spirits, just as looking at summer vacation souvenirs and pictures can evoke joyful recollections of fun in the sun.
“Whether people are interested in what makes them feel the way they do or want a tool to help manage their mood, Moody Me is a powerful app to help people feel better,” said John de Souza, CEO of MedHelp. The app also enables users to record events, such as work stress or relationship issues, feelings of like anxiety or fatigue, and medications they may be taking, to gain better understanding of which factors may be influencing mood. At the touch of a finger, the calendar view displays overall mood trends. Users can also view daily or monthly charts of their emotional highs and lows.
Users can wirelessly sync their mood data from the app to MedHelp’s free online Mood Tracker, enabling them to access the information from any computer. They can also share it with their health provider or pose questions to doctors from top U.S. hospitals and get advice from others via MedHelp’s online support communities (after free registration on the MedHelp site.)
“Our partnership with MedHelp is the latest demonstration of our continued healthymagination commitment to help consumers achieve better health,” said Linda Boff, global director of marketing communications at GE. “Together we are revolutionizing the way consumers manage their health by using the latest technologies to put the power of information directly in users’ hands. Given the strong tie between emotional and physical health, we are excited about the potential of Moody Me to help consumers be better informed.”
CONNECT THE DOTS
Moody Me is the third in a series of mobile apps from GE healthymagination and MedHelp. The first was the popular iPhone pregnancy app, I’m Expecting, released in July 2010, followed by Sleep On It, a sleep tracker and alarm app, released in October. All three apps can be downloaded free from the Apple iTunes App Store or from MedHelp. To read more about how emotions affect health, visit the American Academy of Family Physicians website. Moody Me is an educational tool, and is not a substitute for seeking advice from your physician or other health provider for questions or concerns you may have regarding your medical conditions.
PREVIOUS POST
