Topic Archives: Videos

Nicholas Manolakos on Twenty Years of Self-Experiments

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Nicholas Manolakos is a programmer and avid reader who has been self-tracking for twenty years. He’s recently been improving his left-right body balance, and can write proficiently with both hands now. In the video below, he talks about many of his experiments, including optimizing cognitive performance, managing anxiety, introducing complexity, dietary experiments and fasting – interestingly, one of the things he discovered is that fasting and giving blood improved his cognitive performance. (Filmed by the Toronto QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Nicholas Manolakos – Cognitive Performance from Gary Wolf on Vimeo.

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Mark Drangsholt on Tracking a Heart Rhythm Disorder

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Dr. Mark Drangsholt is a long-time self-tracker who also teaches evidence-based medicine at the University of Washington. He has tracked blood pressure and exercise, atrial fibrillation and what triggers it, deep sleep and sex, diet and body fat. In the video below, Mark shares what he learned about his arrhythmia triggers, and how his self-tracking data helped sway his cardiologist to do a less invasive procedure. He also makes a great case that Quantified Self experiments can be more scientifically valid than many of his colleagues would like to admit. (Filmed by the Seattle QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Mark Dangsholt – QS Tracking; an example using a heart rhythm disorder from David Reeves on Vimeo.

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James Norris on Firsts and Maximizing Life

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

James Norris asks the Singapore QS audience, “Do you remember your first kiss?” In the 16 years since his first kiss at age 13, James calculated that he has had 1,500 “firsts.”  For the past three years, he has been tracking his goals, according to how happy, fulfilled, and productive he feels every day. In the video below, he shares what he learned about his goals, how his personal advisory board works, and tips for maximizing different areas of life. (Filmed by the Singapore QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

James Norris – Singapore QS – Life by the numbers from Ciaran Lyons on Vimeo.

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Bill Schuller on Quantifying With Kids

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Bill Schuller started tracking his exercise and weight in 2010, and got into the habit of talking about his numbers each night at the dinner table. Before long, his kids got interested in tracking too. In the video below, Bill talks about what he learned and tells some fun stories, including one about a tracking game he made up with his five-year-old son to clean up the house while his wife was away for the weekend. (Filmed by the San Diego QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

QS San Diego: Bill Schuller – Quantifying with my Kids from Ernesto Ramirez on Vimeo.

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Randy Sargent on Tomatoes and Irritability

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Randy Sargent has an hypothesis that eating certain foods, like tomatoes, makes him irritable and anxious. He asked himself, “How can I structure an experiment on myself so that I don’t know whether I’m eating tomatoes or not?” and “How would I go about quantifying my irritability?” In the video below, he explores ways to go about designing the experiment, with some fun input from the audience. (Filmed by the Pittsburgh QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Randy Sargent – Discussing experimental design from Quantified Self Pittsburgh on Vimeo.

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Ulrich Atz: Experience Sampling of My Stress

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Ulrich Atz was curious about measuring his stress levels. He chose three methods to do this: experience sampling, day reconstruction method, and heart rate. In the video below, he helpfully describes how he went about designing his experiment, how the different methods work and the challenges of each one, and what he learned. He was surprised to discover which method worked best! (Filmed at the QS Europe conference in Amsterdam.)

Experience sampling of my stress by Ulrich Atz from Quantified Self Amsterdam on Vimeo.

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Alex Grey on Tracking Muscle Data (EMG, ECG)

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Alex Grey is developing a better kind of muscle sensor, to help people see their muscle activity patterns and change behaviors like typing or running to be more effective and less painful. The sensors are wireless, stick to your skin, and can measure different kinds of muscle activity including arm/leg (EMG) and heart muscles (ECG). In the video below, Alex describes how he used these sensors to find his optimal stride rate as a runner, as well as to detect when he was starting to fatigue or compensate on one side for an old injury. Fascinating talk with lots of great data! (Filmed by the Bay Area QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Alexander Grey – Tracking Muscle Data from Gary Wolf on Vimeo.

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Ben Ahrens: Cultivating Intuition Through Meticulous Self-Tracking

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Ben Ahrens got his start in self-tracking as a personal trainer for six years. He was then diagnosed with Lyme disease and spent two years in bed. In the video below, he talks about his tracking failures, the importance of intuition and simplicity, and what he learned about controlling his symptoms by tweaking his mental state. A courageous, honest, insightful story. (Filmed by the New York QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Ben Ahrens – Cultivating Intuition Through Meticulous Self-Tracking from Steven Dean on Vimeo.

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Kiel Gilleade: Lessons from a year of heart rate data

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Kiel Gilleade researches physiological computing. He streams his heart rate data to Twitter, live, 24 hours a day. Over the course of a year, he learned how his heart rate responded to different events, dietary intake, and changes in routine. He was also surprised to learn that he didn’t get up until 8 am! His friends and colleagues can check in on how he’s feeling by looking at his data, but context is very important to record and display for a complete understanding. In the video below, Kiel shows his entire year of data in one beautiful, final slide. (Filmed at the QS Europe conference in Amsterdam.)

Lessons from a year of heart rate data by Kiel Gilleade from Quantified Self Amsterdam on Vimeo.

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Robby MacDonell: Are goals bad for forming habits?

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Alexandra Carmichael

Robby MacDonell from RescueTime tried many different tools to form habits, and didn’t find that any of them worked. After a good deal of frustration, he started to investigate the idea of having goals at all. In this great talk, Robby honestly shows data that isn’t pretty – hooray! He also shares some really interesting insights on how to make the process of behavior change gentler, from personal and system design perspectives. (Filmed by the Seattle QS Show&Tell meetup group.)

Robby MacDonell – Are goals bad for forming habits? from David Reeves on Vimeo.

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