Track mental health on iPhone with Apple Health app

Here’s how to keep track of your mental health using the new mood-tracking feature in iOS 17. Logging how you feel throughout the day with your iPhone should help you identify what’s causing you trouble or what works for you, whether it’s work, family, exercise, sleep or other things.

In order to make any kind of meaningful change, you need to understand fully what helps, what doesn’t, and what you can do. And that means effectively tracking your mental health. Luckily, starting your log is easy. Set it up once, and your phone will ask you every day so you don’t forget.

Let me show you how to start a log of your mental wellness in iOS 17.

How to track your mental health in iOS 17 on iPhone

As with so many health and fitness features on the iPhone and Apple Watch, this mental health feature serves as a way to keep track of your daily status. While no Apple Watch sensor can log your emotional state, the mental health tracker in Apple’s Health app turns your iPhone into a persistent journal that can pull together data. It can help you notice trends (and take action, if appropriate).

Note: This feature is part of iOS 17. If you’re not running iOS 17 (or a later version of iOS), head to Settings > General > Software Update to get it. Upgrading may take about 20 minutes after downloading, so make sure you don’t start it at a bad time.

Get started and set up

To get started tracking your mental health on your iPhone, open the Health app and scroll down the Summary page until you get to the panel that says, “Logging Your Emotions and Moods.” Then tap Get Started. The first page briefly explains how you can record what you’re feeling in the moment or an overall mood for the day.

Log your mental health

Tap Begin. Specify what you want to log right now and tap Next.

On the following screen, you simply log what you’re feeling at the moment. You will see a slider that you can move on a range from negative to positive, or that you can leave in the middle to indicate neutral feelings. Then tap Next.

On the next screen, you can get more specific by tapping on one or more feelings. If none of these sound quite right, tap Show More for additional choices. Then tap Next.

The last step in tracking your mental health on iPhone is marking a few things that might be influencing on your feelings, like Health, Fitness, Friends, Work, Money, etc. If you scroll down, you can write in some notes, too. Tap Done to finish your first log.

Remind yourself to log your state of mind

If you want to effectively track your mental health with your iPhone, I recommend setting a reminder. Tap Turn on Reminders, then Edit Schedule to turn on a reminder for the middle of the day and/or for the end of the day. I went with end of day, but pick whatever will work best for you.

After you’re done, you’ll be left in the State of Mind section in the Health app, where you can see all your data — though it’s probably just the one data point from moments ago. Swipe to the left and tap Log to add some more data for previous days.

You can come back here and log your feelings at any time. (Scroll all the way to the bottom and tap Add to Favorites to make this feature easier to find inside the Health app.) After you endure a bad meeting with your boss or enjoy a great lunch with your friend, you can always log “how you feel right now” to build a better understanding of what affects your mood in the moment.

How to use the State of Mind section of the iPhone’s Health app

In the State of Mind section of the Health app, you can tap the Calendar icon to see your history on a scrollable calendar. Or you can tap Log to add another record, or tap Show in Charts to see all the mental health data you’re tracking in detail.

The States tab will show you how your emotions range, from positive to negative, over time. On the Associations tab, you can see what external factors are causing the most pain or bringing the most relief in your life, listing which ones have the most related entries.

You likely will find the most useful information in the Life Factors tab, where you can see how your mood correlates to exercise, mindfulness, sleep and time spent outside.

Access more information on mental well-being

Scroll down in the State of Mind section, and you will see the option to take a short survey on your overall mental well-being. It only takes a minute or so — you just answer 16 simple questions.

At the end, a scale will show how likely you are to be experiencing anxiety and depression based on your answers. If you’re not doing too well, you can scroll down to read more or get immediate help.

Track your mental health on iPhone: A great feature off to a good start

I’m glad Apple lets everyone use the Health app to track their mental health on their iPhone. As usual, Apple implemented this feature very thoughtfully and carefully. I really like the design of the geometric flower shape that represents your mood.

I think the correlations between exercise, sleep and time spent outside are the best part of the feature, but I wish it were a little more discoverable. Maybe once you log a few weeks’ or months’ worth of data, the app will present you with a graph showing the correlation by sending you a notification. It would be neat if Apple could add more factors — perhaps one that ties into Focus modes or your location to see how time spent at work, at the store, traveling, etc., affects your mood.

See our master list of other great iOS 17 features here.

We originally published this article on how to track your mental health on iPhone using the Health app on September 27, 2023. We updated the information.