Bipolar Holistic Daily Tracker

What this tracker is for. It helps you and your clinician better understand the daily variables that affect bipolar mood — sleep, routine, relationships, nutrition, and symptoms — and it supports a differential diagnosis using a common clinical standard: looking at duration and pattern (is a mood shift cyclic, fitting bipolar, or reactive to circumstances, which points elsewhere?). It supports, but does not replace, assessment by a qualified clinician.

What it combines. This tool blends behavioral sleep medicine (detailed sleep and circadian metrics, since disrupted sleep is one of the most common triggers of mood episodes) with IPSRT — Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy. IPSRT is an evidence-based therapy for bipolar disorder developed by Dr. Ellen Frank and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh. It's built on the idea (the "social zeitgeber" theory) that steady daily routines and sleep–wake timing help protect mood, while disruptions to those routines — and stressful interpersonal events — can tip mood into an episode. That's why this tracker pairs your social-rhythm anchor times and your interpersonal events right next to your mood, energy, and sleep: so patterns between them become visible.

Filling it in

Fill it in at the same time each day — ideally within an hour of waking for the sleep log, and again in the evening for the rest. Consistency matters more than precision; estimate times if you're unsure. It saves automatically in this browser on this device, so you can close the page and come back. Set your anchor target times once (below) — the steady times you're aiming for.

1 · Sleep & Circadian Log

The earliest warning signals. Record your bed and wake times, how long it took to fall asleep, awakenings, and time awake in the night. Time in Bed, Total Sleep, and Sleep Efficiency calculate for you (efficiency below ~85%, or falling total sleep, is worth flagging — especially if energy stays high on little sleep). Also record two light-timing cues that set your body clock: Bright light after waking (the time you first get bright light or daylight in the morning) and Reduced bright light in the evening (the time you dim lights/screens to wind down).

2 · Social Rhythm & Interpersonal (IPSRT)

Anchor times are the everyday routines that keep your body clock steady. For each, write the actual time you did it and a people-code (0 = alone, 1 = others present but not involved, 2 = others actively involved, 3 = others present and very stimulating). The three daytime anchors are:

• First contact — the first time you have contact with another person that day, in any form (in person, phone, or text).
• Start of activity — when you begin the day's main work, school, chores, or childcare.
• Dinner — your evening meal.

(Set your target wake/rise time and bedtime in the anchor-target panel too; you log the actual rise and bedtimes each day in the Sleep Log above, where your targets are shown for reference.) Aim to keep anchor times within ~30–45 minutes of your target, every day including weekends. This section also captures the interpersonal side of IPSRT: your most significant interpersonal moment, interpersonal stress, whether you connected or withdrew, whether an interpersonal event lined up with a mood/energy/sleep change, and which IPSRT problem area was most active.

3 · Mood, Energy & Symptom Domains

Daily ratings so trends are visible at a glance. Mood −5 (very depressed) to +5 (very elated), 0 = neutral. Energy 0 (depleted) to 10 (wired/racing). Symptom/stress ratings 0 (none) to 5 (severe). The free-text domains (thinking, physical, behavior, triggers, substances) are for brief notes, plus a medication-adherence check.

4 · Nutrition

Mark whether you ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner (Y/N each), then whether the day's food included the four building blocks of a stabilizing diet: protein, healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats, and fiber (Y/N each). Eating patterns interact with energy, sleep, and mood, so this adds useful context.

5 · Differential Daily Quick-Check

Mark Y/N for each item. A run of "Yes" on the cyclic items (reduced need for sleep, not-my-usual-self, symptoms most of the day) building over several days is exactly the pattern to catch early.

Notes — what to capture

Use the daily notes for anything the ratings don't capture: context and possible triggers (a stressful event, a schedule/travel disruption, poor sleep, a missed dose), early-warning signs you notice (racing thoughts, overspending, irritability, withdrawal, elevated energy on little sleep), what seemed to help, and anything you want to raise with your clinician at the next session (interpersonal stress, role changes, grief, upcoming routine disruptions).