QS Presentation: Summary of Mindfulness Pills

I've always loved the amazing mix of people at Quantified Self meetups- and last night was no exception!

I gave a presentation on my experiments with Mindfulness Pills using Proteus Biomedical Technology; here it is! (to see my script/speaker notes, click "View on Slideshare", and you can select to see speaker notes by the comments box beneath the slides)

Mindfulness Pills

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nancyhd@stanfordalumni.org

Willpower Pills: The Tic Tac Experiment

Can enhanced mindfulness help a dieter? We recruited five dieters, and gave them a blister pack of placebo pills labeled “Willpower Pills.” We instructed them to spend a few minutes each morning preparing for their day by thinking about how much willpower they would need to avoid food temptation. Each morning, a participant could take up to three of their Willpower Pills, depending on their needs that day. At the end of each day, we sent a text message asking about their willpower that day.

Four of our five participants thought the idea was “crazy, but it worked,” especially since most guessed the Willpower Pills were really just Tic-Tac candies. Even though he felt silly for taking them, 003 told us that they provided a valuable trigger allowing him to organize his expectations for the day, helping him understand the value of thinking about willpower more often.

Our participants ranged from 20 to 57 years old, with varied fitness levels and health, but they agreed that morning mindfulness helped them prepare for the day’s temptations. One participant called them “magic pills” and another called them “encouragement pills.” We heard, “thinking about willpower in the morning keeps it in the back of your mind through the day, so you can power up for the day.”

The participants understood the power of these pills very differently; to some it offered energy for the day, others said it offered confidence, and one said it empowered her. Across everyone, however, it was clear that the act of spending a moment each morning thinking about the day ahead was powerful.

001, our youngest participant, suggested that something like this could apply to many different contexts outside of dieting. He even thought people would pay big bucks for the pills.

002, a busy nanny, found motivation to push through her day both physically and mentally. She told us, “sometimes you need symbols, something to see or feel to be stronger.” Magic pills don’t solve problems, but they provoke the right mindset: “Everything is hard work, but I can make my mind strong.” Consequently, 002 came back from an intense day with her wards and mustered up the willpower to clean her entire house due to our small experiment.

How to Extend Mindfulness Pills

I know that if I'm ever sad, it only takes a few seconds of turning up the music and dancing around to make me feel better- but for some reason, I rarely think to actually DO that! But what if my ipod knew I was sad and turned itself on for me....

There are all sorts of ways to try and pull out of a funk, and I would love to extend my mindfulness pills experiment to try them. Positive Psychology preaches the power of PERMA: Positive Emotions, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment- using some of these concepts in combination with the signal created when you ingest a mindfulness pill and "track" your mood could prove powerful.

For example, when you take a pill to combat sadness, a facebook post could be generated signalling that it would go a long way to have someone send you a quick note. Even quick, easy responses could go a long way in helping to combat the blues.

Another problem with negative emotions is that its hard to come up with actionable items to help yourself in the moment- when I feel depressed, it becomes harder for me to decide to go out and take a walk, or call up a friend. If you used a pill to trigger a text or email to you with a specific task to carry out, you would have a specific, actionable item to do- a much less daunting task than trying to "feel better"

You could even use the other biometric sensors to see if you DID carry out the task texted to you (ie, if it said to dance to a song, if your accelerometer data did not indicate movement, it could send a new task. Or, if you did get up and move around, it could send a congratulatory text).

There are many more possibilities to use mindfulness pills as an empowering way to control negative emotions... what would you do?

Mindfulness Pills- Results

Here is a follow-up on my mindfulness pills experiment!


These are some pictures of the types of readout I had access to on my mobile phone during the experiment- summarized data on sleep, activity, and the times that I took pills.


I also accessed a more raw form of the data for further investigation (above is an excerpt from that readout). The experiment was fairly short (the system is not yet FDA approved, so certain experimental protocols must be observed). However, even in that short time I found meaningful results. I often had significant heart rate spikes after energy or will-power pills. In fact, my bike rides to and from work were more intense after an Energy pill than without one. In more anecdotal terms, during this week my kitchen was cleaner than it ever had been!

More interestingly, though, was that I was focused on using energy pills to follow through with my plans- not skip workouts or chores, which kept me constantly engaged, and pushed me to reach all my goals for the day. Because of this, the other negative emotions I was hoping to avoid- sadness or stress and anger- kind of got washed out. By focusing on giving myself a “pre-emptive power up” to tackle a daunting task or stressor early on, I avoided getting to the “high stress” or “despair” level. In fact, in the entire experiment , I didn’t use a single happiness or calmness pill- only focus and willpower.