Measuring Energy Levels (Help needed!)

[hatsoff2halford]

Hi everyone!

For my Senior research paper I'm doing the correlation between energy levels and different sleeping and eating habits. That isn't until around May next year, but I'm going to try and start now. I went Bi-Phasic and I went on an all raw diet for about 2 weeks. I stopped because of pure laziness.

Now, my question is, I am going to return to both of these again, and I'm looking for a concrete way I could measure my energy levels. Some sort of numerical way. So that I could perhaps say "After going all raw from my normal vegetarian diet, I saw a 35%? energy increase"

Maybe I could just have some sort of rating system that I could (loosely) judge myself. Maybe every morning, afternoon, and night I rate myself on a scale of 1-10 for how awake and energized I feel, or how clear-headed I feel. Maybe I could do something similar to that and have different categories like: "Mental Clarity- Morning- Afternoon- Night-" All on a scale of 1-10. Then I could do the same with an overall energy level.

I would of course have to compare these with a non-raw/biphasic lifestyle, which might get difficult with a rating system like this because when rating my normal lifestyle I have nothing to compare it to.

I was maybe thinking I could do some sort of physical test? Maybe run a certain amount per day and rate how I feel after. But, obviously, I'm going to get in better shape, and I wouldn't be able to tell if it was from the increased physical activity, or the different lifestyle.

I would have all year to document my progress, I'm just stuck on this one small part, which could greatly enhance the paper itself.
Any help would be completely amazing.

Thanks for your help!
-Logan

[silicon toad2000]

perhaps a timed puzzle each day at the same time, that's how sleep researchers measure mental function.
energy is probably a bit difficult, perhaps take you pulse after a short aerobic exercise, i would think a body with more energy would have a slightly lower pulse after a short workout but I don't know, just kinda spitballing.

[Kaspian]

Three games measuring reaction times:

Online Reaction Time Test
Hit the Dot
Test Your Reaction Time

For energy levels, I'd use a scale from 1-10. Be specific about what each number means.

A few examples:
1-Where am I? All I want to do is sleep....
3-Difficulty concentrating
6-Not bad, but under peak efficiency & effectiveness
8-Awake, alert, fairly effective, good concentration
10-Bring it on!

[hatsoff2halford]

thanks for the replies guys! I think some sort of scale is definitely the best idea. Now I'm wondering how long I should stay on my current schedule, and how long I should change over to the biphasic/all raw? Maybe a month or two for the biphasic/raw schedule?

Any other tips or ideas would be awesome.

Thanks!
-Logan

[hatsoff2halford]

Hey everyone! Sorry for the double post. I have one more quick question. I'm going to start measuring all of this on August 6, 2007 (the day school starts) for about 2 months. This will be without any change in diet or sleeping patterns.

I'm going to make an excel graph, and I was wondering how I should format it? Would this work?

Went To Bed (Time) Woke up (Time) # of Lucid (Just for fun) Energy- Morning Energy- afternoon Energy- Night

That would all be on one row, of course. But I'm not sure how to add my change in diet to the spread sheet?

THANKS!

[ahimel]

Originally Posted by hatsoff2halford

That would all be on one row, of course. But I'm not sure how to add my change in diet to the spread sheet?

THANKS!

Add another column titled "raw?" and put a 1 for every day you were on the raw foods diet, a 0 for every day you weren't. Ditto if you try vegan, lacto-ovo veggie, etc.

Then, at the end of the year, excel will be able to run a regression and tell you whether there's a correspondence between having a 1 in that column (being on the raw foods diet) and having energy.

Cool project. Kudos for getting started early. Have fun!

[hatsoff2halford]

That could work, but wouldn't I need more of a long term test than maybe a day of being, say, vegan or all raw? As of right now I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian. Maybe I'll record my energy levels staying on this diet and sleeping habit for 1 month, then transfer over to vegan for 1 month, then try all raw.

Would that work? How would you recommend recording this? Could I have just three months worth of dates in one column. Then like you said, put say, a 1 when I'm lacto-ovo, a 2 when I'm vegan, and a 3 when I'm all raw? Would excel be able to tell me if there was any regression between all of them?

-Logan

[Ilya]

When I did a similar experiment, I've outlined the activities that were important for me - writing speed and accuracy, reading speed, reaction time, attention span, short and long term memory, eye-hand coordination.
Then, I've collected the test for each of these activities. I've used free flash games and tests for cognitive functions and typing software to measure the writing speed. I've also used tests from speed reading book, so I would have comprehension questions. I've measured my performance before starting the experiment, got myself past the learning curve.
Then I've checked myself during the experiment. It is a hassle, but it works.
This does not really measure energy, but it measures important stuff. If you need specifically energy, the best you can do is to use self-assessment on the scale from 1 to 10 as was already suggested., because, really, energy is subjective.

[Ilya]

Oh, and you can take the pictures of yourself with a photo or video camera. The face can tell a lot about the level of energy state and it can be stored for objective evaluation after the experiment, and by different people.