
Self-Tracking - yan
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/05/self-tracking.php
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jerf
The flip side is, what choice do we really have? We can either try to improve
ourselves with measurements that our brains may subconsciously game, or we
just give up on improving ourselves.

My personal approach is to try to raise the bar past what a placebo can give
me. Which is tough, because placebos can be pretty robust! It probably means
I'm going to miss out on smaller-but-still-real improvements, but at least I
have a chance to score the bigger ones. I don't know what else to do. Blinding
yourself on which wine you are drinking is sort of possible, but a lot of
interesting self-improvements can't be blinded even in principle; are you
going to blind yourself to whether or not you're exercising?

I'm often more interested in cognitive improvements, but it's really hard to
come up with a cognitive measure that is objective _and_ doesn't naturally
rise over time as I practice it daily. Waiting for those things to stabilize
can be a problem too; it can be months or even years.

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ivey
Article is much better than the title suggests. Worth a read.

