Dr. Torous and mindApps featured in GQ's look at consumer mood-tracking tools

John Torous, MD MBI, director of the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, was quoted in a GQ feature published April 8, 2026, examining the growing market for mood-tracking wearables and whether they deliver on their mental health promises.

The article, written by Emily Laurence Sardinha, surveys tools from Apple, Oura, Garmin, and Fitbit, devices that use physiological signals like heart rate variability and skin conductance to estimate stress or mood, and asks whether consumer-facing tracking of this kind has any meaningful effect on wellbeing. The piece draws a distinction between physiological stress measurement, which can be thrown off by physical activity, and mood tracking, which relies on self-report and correlational data.

Dr. Torous offered a measured case for the technology's value, with clear conditions attached. He noted that naming and recognizing one's emotional state is a necessary first step toward changing it, particularly for people who have lived with depression long enough that they may not recognize how they feel as abnormal. But he cautioned against continuous monitoring, which he said is likely to backfire. The more useful approach, he argued, is time-limited tracking with a defined purpose: before logging moods, users should ask themselves why they are doing it and what they intend to do with what they find.

He also flagged what is coming next. As AI tools become more capable of interpreting personal health data, Dr. Torous said, they will increasingly be able to translate patterns from wearables into actionable behavioral suggestions. He pointed to ChatGPT Health's January launch, which already allows users to submit medical records and iPhone data, as an early signal of that direction. He added a significant caveat: until the privacy and security questions around sharing personal health data with AI systems are resolved, he does not recommend doing so.

The article also highlights mindApps.org, a free tool developed by the Division of Digital Psychiatry that helps users navigate more than 500 mental health apps by filtering options based on condition, features, and clinical evidence. For readers the GQ piece prompted to look for a mood-tracking app, it is a practical starting point.

The full article is available at GQ.