Melanie Cole (Host): Welcome to Conversations with MIT Health. I'm Melanie Cole. And today we're examining tracking self-care, using that data to help ourselves be our best selves. Joining me is Eric Marks. He's a Clinical Social Worker with MIT Student Mental Health and Counseling Services. Erik, it's a pleasure to have you with us again today. So, tell us a little bit about tracking data for self-care. Why track these aspects of ourselves?

Erik Marks, LICSW (Guest): Hi, Melanie. Thanks. It's good to be back. In the last couple of months, where so many people are isolated, we are all noticing different things that bothered us in the past or that we dislike about ourselves or are giving us some trouble. And so, I seem to be handing out the same idea again and again. So, I thought it'd be useful for us to talk about it. Often, when our MIT engineers, scientists, faculty, and staff notice something, a problem in the world, they want to gather more information. And so it's the same thing with ourselves. First we identify the problem. So, let's say it’s, let's say sleep, having trouble sleeping, or I tend to have a bad day on Monday, so maybe I don't know it's Mondays yet. I seem to be having a lot of bad days. So, the problem is either sleep or I'm having bad days. So, by coming up with some sort of system for tracking various aspects of our lives, we might be able to figure out where's the source of the problem.

And so, we identify some variables, we gather some information, we then interpret the data and then we repeat. The idea is that, by interpreting the data, we might get a better sense of what's causing the problem and it might point to some solutions.

Host: Well, then you mentioned sleep or maybe having bad days, what type of data are we talking about? What do you suggest that we track or take a look at? How can we quantify our stress levels or whether it's our mood, whatever it happens to be, what is this data you want us to be looking at?

Erik: Sure. And it varies a lot. And some of the things that we track in other situations, might be the problem. What I mean by that is if the problem is sleep, we would look at things that are stressful, maybe meetings that are coming up. Are we eating enough? Are we drinking too much caffeine late in the day?

So, we come up with some variables that might affect our sleep and then we monitor them. Now sleep is a particular kind of problem that a lot of people have and a lot of people come to counseling for. And so, there are lots of things that people who study sleep suggest. Waking up at the same time every day is probably the most effective means, not drinking caffeine late in the day, but then other things we might want to track are how much am I worrying? And that's a good one. How much does my mind go back to a particular topic? And that's something that you can count number of times that your mind goes back to a specific idea during the day. The worry with the advisor, the deliverable or the time that paper, whenever the paper is due, the P-set.

And so, when we notice our mind going back to something again and again, our brain is saying, hey, that's important and likely causing us some kind of distress. So, tracking, in other situations, tracking sleep itself, how much did I sleep? Am I having trouble sleeping as compared to me of the past? I think the thing that, people get better at over time is knowing how many variables to track and what kinds, for them. So, it becomes very personal quickly. If you have too many variables, you can't isolate where the problem is. So, somewhere between three and seven maybe is good.

Let's say with mood, I'm having a lot of bad days lately, tracking sleep is important. Am I eating enough? Am I finding some way to connect with others? Am I being social in some way? Even if it's distanced, even if it's online. Am I getting enough of that? If it's important to me,

Host: So interesting what we're discussing here. So, before we talk about what we do with this data, Erik, how do we do this self-care tracking? What apps can help us with it? What do you suggest is the best way to sort of count those things? Remind ourselves. Myself, I like to write down my worries. I like to write down my list, it's on a piece of paper and that way I kind of carry it around with me and I can kind of take them off my head. But are there apps, is there technology, how would you like us to actually do this particular topic?

Erik: So, Melanie, I'm glad it's you, and that you already do some of these things, because I would've forgotten about paper. So, a lot of people do keep a journal of some kind and I don't mean a diary in the sense that one writes one's thoughts down. That's useful as well, but even creating some columns on a page and with paper, pencil or pen, just tracking the date, four or five variables, having a qualitative column that might be some notes about where we're having difficulty, an argument with a family member, friend, advisor, things from that day that were stressful. Lately, I've been encouraging people to use something like Excel or Sheets or an open source version of those, because it makes it easier to do a scatterplot or some sort of basic statistics, descriptive statistics just to see, oh, it looks like every Sunday I have a tough time. Why is that? Well, Monday morning I have to go back to work or I've got that advisory meeting. In terms of apps, I'm a little unprepared. I know there's some that track mood. A green smiley face, a yellow, neutral face and a red frowny face.

And so, those can be interesting. For me, something like that may not have enough places to hold variables that you want to track, and it may not output data in a way that could be useful. So, for me, a simple spreadsheet is probably the easiest or like you were saying paper. And then when we look at it, if you get, let's say a month or two months worth of data, which for some people may feel like a long time, but you need a good data set to have some worthwhile results; but then running some simple statistical analyses on the data and seeing am I actually more upset on some days rather than others?

It may turn out that there is no pattern, but often there is, and the pattern can be as simple as what I said, Sunday nights are hard because I don't want to face Monday or it's always before the presentation on Fridays. So, one of the important things is having system that works for you. That's easy for you to engage with. That's not stressful because we don't want to add something that's unnatural or burdensome and yet, gathering the data can be interesting. It can be really useful.

Host: Well, it certainly can, and we can always use mood rings. Oops. I think I'm probably showing my age there, but those used to tell us kind of what we were feeling. So, what should we do with this info Erik Once we realize what we're doing, if we do see a pattern that we get stressed out on Sunday nights, or that something really gets to us that we've seen on social media and we keep going back to it, it's like poking the bear. You just keep going back and it keeps re-upsetting you every time you look at it, but why do you keep looking at it? What do we do with this information?

Erik: Great. So, the easy answer for that is come to counseling, which you always can. But I think it's important to note correlations to see patterns and where things are connected to one another. You mentioned earlier, quantifying things and numbers are great. We rely on them a lot, but they don't do much for meaning. And so, when we see a pattern, the usefulness of the numbers ends, and we have to think about why is it that this gives me trouble. And that's really where some of the key may be. What is it about the meeting? What is it about the deadline? And then I can ask myself questions about my story.

What's my story? What am I telling myself about this experience? What kinds of thoughts, like you said earlier, what do I worry about? And so, addressing the nature of the worry can often help. And so, sometimes when people aren't aware that they're worrying; gathering data, seeing the pattern, isolating where it's source is, brings us back to what is my worry, and then I can address what that means.

Host: So interesting and trying to sort through all of this, as we wrap up, and you're talking about the difference between quantitative and qualitative data in this context and our worries, our stressors, things that affect our ability to conduct good self-care. Whether it's we don't want to exercise because we're not motivated because of those stressors or we eat junk, or we put things off and procrastinate, whatever the negative response to these particular things is. Give us your best advice about tracking that data, why we should track it. And then maybe some ways briefly that we can take what we've learned and turn it around today.

Erik: Well, you really got it in the summary and that once we've seen, all right, so I'm worried about the advisor and it looks like every time I worry about the meeting, I start eating terribly. Then I can start to ask myself to do things differently and I can track my change. Now it's measurable. Every time I worry, I sleep less. Okay. So, that may not be able to fix this week, but I noticed I always started on the Doritos before the meeting or something. So, maybe it's I eat one less chip or one less bag. But trying to figure out how do I make some kind of measurable goal out of this information that I've gathered. I think that's where it's the most helpful, because if I put off studying, or working on the P-set most of the day, then I can reduce it by 15 minutes and then I can count it and I can see results as I go.

Host: Great information and something for really all of us to think about not only the MIT community, but all of us, because helping to track these things that slow us down or stop us in our tracks is really so important so that we can continually move forward and find the best in ourselves. Thank you so much, Erik. You're just such a great guest as always. And for more information on MIT Student Mental Health and Counseling Services, Listeners can visit Health.mit.edu for more information and to get connected to one of our providers. That concludes this episode of Conversations with MIT Health. Please remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast and all the other MIT Health podcasts. . I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.