Pattern Watching

The advantage of tracking activities and writing a journal everyday is that you start to see patterns. You can see trends. In my case, I can specifically see the times when I was doing the best mentally and emotionally. I can then overlay that with running data from my watch, overlay that with nutritional data and even overlay it with medications I was taking. Once upon a time this would have all been very difficult to collect and even more painful to track with any degree of consistency. Now, much of it is tracked automatically and some has been made really easy with simplified tools that run on your phone.

So I can access all these data sources. I can even see what I was searching on the Internet and what I was buying via Amazon. Really, it is amazing how much we can track.

So I spent some time on that today. I could determine times when clearly I was in a better state of mind. What is interesting is that during that state of mind, the following is true:

I was not intaking any caffeine

I was getting 8 hours of sleep with a consistent bedtime and a consistent wake up time.

I was taking a certain course of supplements

I was buying less stuff on amazon

I was running faster

I weighed less

The data is quite clear. When I spend more time outside in physical activity, live life free of artificial stimulants, buy less and eating better then, well I am just better off.

Guy