Dear Reader,
I cordially invite you to take part in what we'll call moving forward, "Personal Health Experiments." These are inspired by research in how to create autonomous and sustainable practices that lead to performance longevity. Something that I assume you're interested in if you read this Substack. But as the saying goes, don't just talk about it, be about it.
These experiments have the express goal for you to develop greater awareness and insight to your own health as well as discover tools that help you maintain that health and course correct when necessary. In addition to that the overarching goal is to foster an experimental mindset. The real purpose of experimentation is the opportunity to try things so that we can ask better questions. More and more I've come to see healthy behavior not as a place of static arrival but instead of a set of malleable skills that a person can and should develop over time. After all, you either pay attention to your health in up front costs or in back end charges.
The choice is yours.
Experimental Mindset
Developing an experimental mindset is not about finding protocols that lead to a false sense of certainty in the outcomes. Even the best protocols with the best most rigorous scientific research fall flat when they enter the chaos of human psychology and behavior. Instead of looking for static ways of acting that reduce our own cognitive load but are also often less robust over time we'll be looking to develop adaptable strategies for maintaining health and performance for the long run.
Developing these skills will help you whether you are an athlete in the prime of your career (because plenty of badass athletes got bumped because they can't stay well enough to compete) or you just want to do your best in the game of life for the long run. Having an experimental mindset will create a discerning mind when it comes to how you read signals from your body and developing a course of action when you get those signals.
Our goal in doing so is what I think of more and more as "real" learning. Not just rote memorization like is engrained in us so much in school but instead the type of skill and philosophical grounding that can only come from personal experience. When we experiment we embrace the mantra, "Let's see" or more preferably, "Let's find out together." When we take this approach we not only find the best information, half of the equation, but we marry that information to meaning.
If what we learn is meaningful to us, truly meaningful to us, then we expect better results when we try to change. We take ownership over our own processes and our own solutions. To clarify, that in no way indicates we shouldn't look to outside measures or resources. We alone do not decide reality. However, if it's long lasting health and performance we want, developing the real knowledge, skills, and habits that will deliver that it's necessary we connect data to our own experience. In truth, that's how we all make decisions anyhow.
That's enough talking about that. Maybe in the near future I'll write more on this mindset in detail but for now we'll get on to the doing.
Is and Isn't(s)
As we move forward to engage further in these personal health experiments I think it's important to set some clear expectations up front.
What this is not:
A longitudinal double blind placebo controlled randomized human control trial. Not a meta-analysis. It's just not. Go to scholar.google.com for those.
A laboratory. I'm more of a black jacket than white coat guy.
A data collection service. My aim is to do some really cool things with these experiments in the future but for now we're going to start as simply as possible so that we can start. There’s no app or software to do it for you. YET.
Healthcare or medical advice. I'm not a doctor. Never have been one. If you want one to tell you what to do, go talk to yours.
Designed to be universally applicable to all people who might stumble upon this work. It's not possible and your Mom doesn't work here. If something doesn't quite work for you, I'll try to help and hopefully the community that builds here will too. But ultimately, it's on you.
What it is:
Inspired by real scientific data. The experiments that we'll try will be grounded in legitimate scientific research and best practice in human health and performance. If you ever see anything on here that doesn't jive with that, please tell me. I want to do better too.
An opportunity to develop usable heuristics to drive decision making. Heuristics never represent the full picture of things but they offer us powerful decision making ability if we base them on reliable information and commit to a regular audit of our own thinking.
Opportunity for self-reflection. In the work of Schraefel et al (full paper below) they showed that the opportunity for self-reflection played an essential role on long term behavior change. In other words, did the participants have a chance to think about what actually happened and why it happened. this will be a standard part of our experimental approach.
Let's Get Started
Here are my goals for this year. Two or three personal health experiments with you this year. That's every twelve weeks-ish. This gives me the time to cook it up, write it up, and deliver it to you. Then we'll talk about what happened and I'll write that up. Off we'll go again.
Each personal health experiment will be based around an avenue of improvement that is drawn from the Check Engine Light M3 categories of MIND, MVMT, and MTTR. If you haven't heard about those or need a review, go HERE. I won't be dictating a single experiment but instead will offer options of interventions that are relevant to the outcome we are aiming at. The first set I'm planning on dictating outright. After that, I'd like your input. When it's time for that I'll put out a poll or post a question in notes. If you have an idea you can't hang on to then send me a message.
The first experiment will be released on March 15, 2024. I'll release the instructions on that Friday in place of my normal post here on Substack. Follow me for updates in Instagram as well @thecheckenginelight.
Learn Together
On last thing. This is an invitation. Like for a birthday party or a graduation. You are being asked to come to a thing and to do so with decorum. This is a learning environment like a sports practice or classroom. I'm not anticipating anything different but nonetheless it helps to have said it out loud. Even if just proverbially.
Community and communication are important. Not for the gotcha moments but to use the interchange of experience to make us all a little better. If you're interested in engaging in good faith, you are welcome to join in here. If not, take a hike.
I'm excited to learn with you all.
Thanks for reading,
Rob
Research - Experiment in a Box