What are you working on? April 2012

David_Gerard

This is the bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:

What are you working on?

Here are some guidelines:

Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
Talk about your goals for the project.
Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
Link to your work if it's linkable.

This is the bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:

What are you working on?

Here are some guidelines:

Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
Talk about your goals for the project.
Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
Link to your work if it's linkable.

Surprisingly, what is most strongly predictive (of the things I've looked at) of my happiness is how much exercise I have gotten that day (even more so than how much I have eaten).

I don't think that'd be much of a surprise if you read much literature on exercise - exercise improving mood & cognition is a pretty common result.

Apparently I am more energetic (Significant at alpha = 0.05) when I eat more than average than less than average.

Or vice versa? (I feel very hungry on modafinil - does hunger cause me to use modafinil?)

I feel very hungry on modafinil - does hunger cause me to use modafinil?

You do? It's supposed to have the typical appetite-suppressing properties that most stimulants share.

0RobertLumley14y

I knew of the literature you mention (well, not the specific literature, but that's not the point) - which is precisely what caused me to look at it - but I thought other factors would still be more correlative. I would have thought sleep, stress, recreation time, or social time would be more predictive. But those barely correlate. [...] I quite intentionally didn't say one caused the other. But I wouldn't expect the primary causality to flow from energy to eating, as opposed to from eating to energy. (Or, yes, from a common third cause)