Starting a New Bipolar Treatment: A Mood and Sleep Scale

Updated 10 October 2026

At a glance

NIMH says to keep a life chart or mood journal to help recognize your mood swings, and it describes episodes as changes in behavior, energy or activity that are noticeable to others.
The FDA calls a medication list a tool for keeping track of everything you take, and MedlinePlus says talking with your providers about medicines can help you learn to take them safely and effectively.
A mood and sleep scale of your own, an entry template, a way to read the record, four steps and a one-page sheet are set out below.
Bipolar Journey keeps daily mood, sleep and energy notes, medicine names and timing, and visit notes in one dated history, and its Doctor Report turns that history into a one-page summary.

A new bipolar treatment starts on a date, yet the sleep, energy and mood it will be read against shift from day to day on their own. Weeks later it becomes hard to say what changed first and what else was going on. A scale you wrote yourself, with dates that begin before the start, keeps the order of events on paper for the clinician.

This guide sets out what NIMH, MedlinePlus and the FDA say about mood journals, medication lists and side effects, then offers a scale, an entry template, a way to read the record, four steps and a one-page sheet. The guide covers what to write down and what to bring. Which treatment to use, whether it is helping and what any mood or sleep change means are decisions for your clinician, and nothing here advises on any of them.

What bipolar disorder sources say to note when a new treatment starts

NIMH gives the plainest line for a record: "Keep a life chart or mood journal to help recognize your mood swings." The same page describes mood episodes as feelings that are intense and happen with "changes in behavior, energy levels, or activity levels that are noticeable to others." That gives a journal three things beyond mood to hold: behavior, energy and activity.

MedlinePlus says bipolar disorder "causes changes in behavior, energy levels, and activity levels" along with mood swings, and that your family and friends may notice changes in activity levels. Both pages list sleep among the signs, from a decreased need for sleep to trouble falling asleep or sleeping too much. Sleep belongs in the record together with mood for that reason.

For medicines, the FDA says: "Keeping track of when, how and why you use medications is important for your health and safety." It describes a medication list as a tool for tracking everything you take, including vitamins and supplements. On side effects, the FDA says: "When side effects do occur, you are encouraged to report them to FDA’s MedWatch, a program for reporting serious problems with human medical products including drugs."

None of these pages explains how to judge a new treatment. A dated record of sleep, energy, mood and what you were told supplies the facts for that conversation.

Daily notes on sleep, mood words and energy go into the Daily check-in of Bipolar Journey (by Health Journey Labs), so every day carries the same few lines.

A mood and sleep scale for the weeks around a new bipolar treatment

A scale of your own is a way to keep the numbers comparable from one week to the next. Nobody grades it, and no row names a diagnosis. Each row below is a prompt for your own entry, and the start date is the one your clinician gives you.

Mood, sleep, energy and activity around new treatment

Bipolar Journey sets out the rows of a simple scale.

Bipolar Journey (by Health Journey Labs) — The rows of a mood and sleep scale around a new bipolar treatment: what to rate, how to write it and why a source supports the row
Row	How to write it	Where the habit comes from
Mood	A number from 1 to 10, with your own words for 1, 5 and 10 written once at the top	NIMH: a life chart or mood journal to help recognize mood swings
Sleep	Hours slept and a word for how rested you felt	NIMH and MedlinePlus: sleep changes are listed among the signs
Energy	A number from 1 to 10 for the day	MedlinePlus: bipolar disorder changes energy levels
Activity	More, less or about the same as your usual self, in a few words	NIMH: activity levels compared with your usual self
What others noticed	One line if someone close mentioned a change	MedlinePlus: family and friends may notice changes
What else changed	Illness, travel, work, a new product, a missed meal	FDA: update your list when something changes

The words for 1, 5 and 10 are yours, set before the start date and left alone afterward so the numbers keep their meaning. The rows are the same each day, and the right-hand column shows where each habit comes from. No row asks you to name an episode or guess a cause.

If tracking is only starting, the guide to starting to track sleep and mood in bipolar disorder describes a light first step.

Mood, energy and sleep ratings sit in the Daily check-in of Bipolar Journey, and a day that clearly stands out can be flagged in the Flare Tracker with a short note.

Dates, symptoms and what else changed that week: the entry for a new bipolar treatment

The scale draws on daily entries, so each entry carries the same few lines. That sameness lets the fourth week be set beside the days before the start.

Dates, symptoms and changes around new treatment

Bipolar Journey counts days from the start date your clinician gave.

Date and the day count since the start date your clinician gave.
The scale rows: mood, sleep, energy and activity, each in the words and numbers you set at the top.
Medicines and supplements taken that day, each with the time, copied from your list.
What else changed that week, from illness and travel to work, a new product or a missed meal.
The date of anything new you noticed, with a few words about it, and any side effect you want to mention to your provider.

Keep the lines short. A missed day is left blank and marked as missed, since a gap tells a clinician more than a guess. The FDA says to "Review and update your list often, especially when something changes", and the same habit applies to this entry: when a medicine, a product or a routine changes, write the date beside it.

MedlinePlus adds a line that suits the medicine row: ask your provider questions when instructions are unclear, and write down the answers.

When medicines already have their own space, the guide to tracking bipolar labs alongside mood and sleep weeks shows fields that can share the line.

Medicine names and timing live in My Meds inside Bipolar Journey, while sleep and mood live in the Daily check-in, so a single date points to both halves of the line.

Reading the record of bipolar disorder with your mental health clinician: what you bring and what the team decides

A record is made to be consulted, and a few minutes with the clinician are enough to go through it. The pairs below set what you hold against what the team holds.

Reading the record with your mental health clinician

Bipolar Journey compares the days before and after the start date.

The days before the start date: you bring your usual sleep, energy and mood lines, and the clinician decides what counts as usual for you.
The days after: you bring the same lines, dated, and the clinician decides what the dated changes mean.
Signals noticed by others: you bring the dates and the words of whoever mentioned a change, and the clinician decides what, if anything, follows.
New symptoms and side effects: you bring the first date and your words, and the clinician decides what happens next.
The medicine list: you bring it with dated changes, and every decision about the plan stays with the team.
Test dates: you bring the dates of any blood work, and the clinician reads the results.

Start at the start date and move forward one week at a time, pointing to the days that stood out and reading your own notes for them. A clinician may ask about sleep, illness or travel in those weeks, and the line for what else changed answers that at once.

The record shows the sequence as you saw it. What lies behind it is outside the page, and nothing on it should be read as a verdict. In a life-threatening situation, call your local emergency number, before any writing. MedlinePlus lists thinking about death or suicide among the signs of a depressive episode, and NIMH says that if you or someone you know is in immediate distress or is thinking about hurting themselves, you can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Dates of blood work are kept in My Labs of Bipolar Journey, inside the same history as the mood and sleep weeks they fall near.

Four steps and questions for the first visit after a new bipolar treatment starts

Mental health visits are short, and the first one after a start date carries a lot. Four steps prepare the page, and a few plain questions go with it.

The first visit after a new treatment starts

Bipolar Journey fills in entries before and since the start date.

Fill in the entries for the days before the start date and for each day since, leaving blanks where you are unsure.
Bring the medicine and supplement list up to date, with a date for each change.
Mark the days that stood out, the dates of anything others noticed and the date each new symptom or side effect first appeared.
Choose two or three questions and put the most important one first.

From Bipolar Journey, we recommend finishing the entries the day before the visit (Bipolar Journey scale), so the latest days are on the page.

MedlinePlus says: "Talking to your health care providers about your medicines can help you learn to take them safely and effectively." That line is the reason to bring questions, and the answers belong to the clinician or pharmacist. NIMH also says to report any concerns about side effects to your health care provider right away, which makes the date of a first side effect worth having to hand.

Write down the answers during the visit, with the date, so the next appointment has somewhere to start. The guide to what to log between bipolar hard weeks lists other items for the bag.

Questions you have chosen can be parked in My Care Team within Bipolar Journey, and the Doctor Report condenses the record onto a single page.

One sheet for a bipolar disorder mental health visit: sleep, mood, and what changed

A single page lets the clinician see the sequence before the first question is asked. Keep it to one side, and let the daily entries stay in your bag for any question about a particular day.

One sheet for the mental health visit

Bipolar Journey fits the treatment details onto one sheet.

The start date your clinician gave, the name of the new treatment as it was said to you and the weeks the record covers.
Your usual sleep, energy and mood lines before the start date, with the words you set for 1, 5 and 10.
The same lines for the days since the start date.
The dates and words of anything others noticed, and the date each new symptom or side effect first appeared.
Anything else that changed in those weeks: illness, travel, work, products, routines.
Every item on your medicine list, plus a date for each change you made a note of.
Answers you were given, with the date and who gave them, and two or three questions for this visit.

Hand the page over at the start and ask the clinician to read it with you. If the clinician names a plan or asks you to note something specific, add it with the date, so the page keeps growing. Keep your own copy as well.

The page holds events and what you were told. What lies behind the changes, and any step that follows, belong to the care team. The sources here describe habits of tracking and listing, and none gives instructions on treatment. If you or someone close is in immediate distress, the local emergency number and the crisis line named above come first, and the page can wait.

Through the Doctor Report, Bipolar Journey hands you one page that gathers the entries, medicine names and questions, ready to pass across as the visit opens.

How Bipolar Journey can help

A page and a pen are enough to begin. If you want mood and sleep notes, medicine lists and visit notes in one dated history, the best bipolar apps guide compares the options.

Bipolar Journey is a personal bipolar tracker from Health Journey Labs on the App Store and Google Play. Six short rows written with dates, starting before day one, leave the later weeks something steady to be set against. The meaning of any pattern belongs to the care team, and what the scale offers them is dates and words as they happened. Below is what you can use and how each part helps.

Daily check-in — Logs physical symptoms, emotional state, nutrition, sleep, exercise, meds, external factors; read together with the rest of the logged history.
Daily Journal — Logs free-text notes, voice entry; app-specific items: what the short night cost, partner asks, visit debriefs, leftover guilt after you canceled, fear around a fast day; read together with scores and other logged history (adds context).
Flare Tracker — Logs flag a day clearly worse than the usual hard week; app-specific items: a mood spike, a wired short-sleep stretch, a crash that stands out; read together with history across weeks (one-off spike vs repeating pattern).
My Meds — Logs medicine names, timing, dose; app-specific items: options you already take as prescribed; read together with sleep hours, next-day mood, the rest of the tracked history.
My Assessments — Logs structured check-ins beyond daily scores, onboarding life and social context; read together with ongoing history.
Learn — Logs short education topics, prompts; app-specific items: sleep, mood, routines, visit prep; read together with your own logged weeks.
AI companions — Logs Clara (general chat), specialist companions; app-specific items: knowledge, fitness, nutrition, relationships; read together with your logged history (companions already see it); used for: visit wording; a calm partner script; a soft rain-check line; a listening ear after a hard night.
Weekly Goals — Logs one small aim, whether it held; read together with real check-ins.
Doctor Report — Logs one-page summary exported from logged history; app-specific items: dates, sleep and mood context, how you functioned; read together with the history already logged.
My Care Team — Logs clinicians, short visit notes; app-specific items: tends to ask mainly about mood words rather than sleep hours; read together with logged history; used for: visit prep (what to ask and bring); notes during the visit; review afterward.
My Labs — Logs result dates; app-specific items: blood counts, levels, other tests; read together with sleep, mood, function.
Period Tracker — Logs start and stop dates, flow, how heavy or light bleeding felt; read together with sleep, mood, energy, everything else logged.
Food Tracker — Logs meal or drink lines, caffeine, alcohol; read together with sleep, mood.
Weight Tracker — Logs scale or body notes.

Everything you log builds one history, and insights get stronger as it grows. Custom symptoms let you add your own labels.

We make Bipolar Journey at Health Journey Labs. This guide is educational and does not replace medical advice. Diagnosis, medication decisions, and urgent care decisions belong with your treating clinicians.

Sources

FAQ

The answers below draw on the sources cited in this guide, and the app they mention is Bipolar Journey (by Health Journey Labs).

What does NIMH say about a life chart or mood journal?

NIMH says to keep a life chart or mood journal to help recognize your mood swings. The sentence sits in its list of ways to help yourself, and this guide uses it as the reason to give each day the same few rows.

Mood, sleep and energy lines go under one date in Bipolar Journey, so the history is ready to open when the clinician asks how the weeks since the start have gone.

Why does the scale include sleep as well as mood?

NIMH and MedlinePlus both list sleep among the signs they describe, from a decreased need for sleep to sleeping too much. Sleep hours and a word for how rested you felt are listed with mood for that reason.

Because sleep and mood share the Daily check-in of Bipolar Journey, a clinician reading one line across a week sees both together and has no need to ask you to piece the nights back from memory.

How do I keep numbers comparable from week to week?

Write your own words for 1, 5 and 10 once, before the start date, and leave them alone afterward. A scale that stays put says more to a clinician than a scale that shifts as the weeks pass.

Notes in Bipolar Journey are entered the same way each day, which lets a clinician follow one line across the weeks and see where a change falls, with no need to recall how a number was chosen.

What belongs under what else changed that week?

Typical entries are illness, travel, work, a new product and a missed meal. Writing them gives the clinician context for the sleep and mood days, and every conclusion about them stays with the clinician, who knows the rest of the history. The record only places them in order alongside the days.

Add one extra line in the Daily Journal of Bipolar Journey to hold that context with the day's ratings, and a scan down the weeks shows which hard days arrived with company, and of what kind.

Who decides if a change has anything to do with the new treatment?

Deciding that belongs to your clinician, since a record shows when something appeared and offers no cause. The date of first appearance and what else happened that week are the facts to pass on.

A day that stands well apart from your usual hard week can be flagged in the Flare Tracker of Bipolar Journey with a short note, which makes the date easy to find when you are asked.

What do NIMH and the FDA say about side effects?

NIMH says to report any concerns about side effects to your health care provider right away, and the FDA encourages reporting serious problems to its MedWatch program. A dated line in the record keeps the first appearance clear.

Replies from the provider can be saved as a short note in My Care Team within Bipolar Journey, so what was said stays attached to the date and the symptom it answered.

Is it worth writing what others noticed?

NIMH says family and friends may notice mood swings and changes in activity levels, and MedlinePlus says the same. One line with the date and their words gives the clinician a view you may not have had.

Under the date it happened, Bipolar Journey can hold the remark right where the sleep and mood lines are, so nobody has to rely on remembering who said what, or when.

Should blood work dates go in the record?

Writing down the date a blood test was done helps the team place it among your sleep and mood weeks, while the clinician reads the result itself. A date attached to a week adds context that a result may lack on its own, and it is one short line.

Logging a test date through My Labs in Bipolar Journey puts it in one history with the daily entries, so dates and weeks appear together on the page you give the clinician.

What should I take to the first visit after a start date?

Take the scale, the one-page sheet, the medicine list with its dates and two or three questions. The FDA calls a medication list a tool for keeping track of everything you take, which fits the same bag.

At the start of the visit you can hand across the page that Bipolar Journey builds through the Doctor Report, while the longer history stays on your phone for any question about an older week.

Can an AI chat tell me whether a bipolar treatment is helping?

Weighing a treatment against your history is for your clinician alone. A chat with an AI can help phrase questions and tidy notes, and every reply is a point to raise with the care team, who decide what any change means.

Dates and entries you logged can be turned into a short summary by the companion in Bipolar Journey, and each line is yours to read before anything goes to a clinician, because the clinic owns the verdict on what it means.

Whom do I contact if I am in immediate distress?

In a life-threatening situation, call your local emergency number. NIMH adds that if you or someone you know is in immediate distress or thinking about hurting themselves, you can call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.

Entries can wait. Once you are through to help, a few dated lines can go into Bipolar Journey later, giving the next visit an ordered account of that day without leaning on memory alone.

What if some days are missing from the scale?

Entries made after the fact are fine when marked as written afterward, and days you cannot recall can stay blank. A clear gap helps the clinician more than a confident guess, and the clinic can ask about it.

Two words in Bipolar Journey still make an entry on a rough day, and a skipped day shows as a gap read as it stands, so no row needs padding to look complete.

Is it worth giving the same page to every clinician?

Mental health, primary care and other offices each see a slice of your history, so one page shared with all of them keeps the account consistent between visits. Dating each handover shows which copy is newest.

One exported page from Bipolar Journey can reach each person on your care team, and a date on each handover shows whose copy is the latest, so older versions drop away.

Who should see my symptom notes, and what about privacy?

Mood entries, sleep hours and notes from a hard week can be read out of context by someone who was not there. Keep the log behind a passcode, avoid shared devices, and agree with your clinician or a trusted person on what you share and when.

The health notes in Bipolar Journey are yours to keep or share. The app's privacy policy explains how data is stored and handled. Nothing in this article is medical advice.