Mood Meters for Teens

In my therapy sessions with teens, I’ll often introduce the visual of a “mood meter, with a scale of 0 to 10. Zero is “the cool zone” or BLUE, the calmest mood, whereas 10 is “the hot zone” or RED—the worst imaginable mood. When clients tell me where they fall on the scale, I move my left arm up or down. If a client is getting activated or hurriedly giving lots of details about a story, I may shift the language and use color words RED, YELLOW, BLUE (as well as hand movements) to convey their emotional intensity.

When used regularly, I’ve found that a mood meter is a helpful way for teens to regulate their thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and behaviors. Teens can check in with themselves and ask “What am I feeling right now, and where am I on my mood meter?” You can also pose this question to the teens in your life. They might respond with something like, “I’m so angry about what happened. My shoulders are getting tense and I’m clenching my hands. This feels like an 8. I’m definitely nearing my RED zone.”

By labeling our feelings and sensations in the moment, we’re slowing down our reactivity and, stopping impulsive behaviors, and preventing negative consequences while moving towards making more conscious choices. We’re allowing a pause to happen, which gives us time to think through next steps. With clients, I demonstrate this pause by breathing audibly—inhaling, and exhaling—while sitting back in my chair with my shoulders back and my chin up. I tell them that before we react, it’s helpful to think about how to approach the issue at hand, to first answer the questions, “What’s the best way for me to handle this? What are my choices here? How do I want this to go?”

This problem-solving approach can help decrease the amount of time clients spend in a higher mood rating, decrease how often they feel reactive, and reduce elevated reactions if they’re triggered in the future. With practice, clients can stop and think, “I’ve been through this before.”

We learn to regulate our mood by becoming familiar with our triggers, developing different coping strategies that help us at each stage of our mood meter, and better matching our reactions to specific situations. Just like that, a mood meter can connect us to our feelings, thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviors and help us feel better sooner.