Literature surveys

Why population research cannot predict individual responses, and how to design valid self-experiments. Covers crossover design, statistical methods, common threats to validity, and practical experiment planning.

The science of self-monitoring: what works, what doesn't, and why. Covers accuracy of consumer wearables, measurement validity, feedback loops, reactivity, data overwhelm, and privacy. Includes tracking priority hierarchy for practical use.

What RCT evidence shows about app effectiveness, why engagement drops 50–80% in the first month, how notifications work, and when personalization adds value. Covers the engagement-attrition lifecycle and design principles for practice platforms.

Self-determination theory, goal-setting, implementation intentions, identity-based change, and the intention-behavior gap. Covers why quality of motivation matters more than quantity, and why ego depletion failed replication.

From sleep architecture and the two-process model to evidence-based interventions and consumer tracker accuracy. Covers chronotype, individual sleep need, clinical red flags, and N=1 experiment protocols.

The psychophysiology of stress and recovery, heart rate variability as a within-person trend metric, and evidence-ranked interventions. Covers allostatic load, HRV measurement, and the boundary between recovery science and wellness speculation.

How alcohol disrupts HRV, sleep architecture, and next-day performance — and why those effects are detectable in wearable data. Covers the J-curve reanalysis, Mendelian randomization evidence, genetic variation in metabolism, and behavior change approaches for reduction.

How much exercise is needed for which outcomes, what types produce which adaptations, how adherence erodes and how to prevent it. Covers mortality, cardiovascular, metabolic, mental health, and cognitive effects with effect sizes.

Separating dietary signal from noise: evidence on dietary patterns, macronutrients, meal timing, ultra-processed foods, and behavioral strategies for dietary change. Covers PREDIMED, DASH, intermittent fasting, and food environment effects.

An evidence-tiered review of supplements and nootropics. Distinguishes deficiency correction from general enhancement, covers safety and interaction risks, and frames supplementation as a domain for structured self-experimentation.

The science of attention, working memory, executive function, and flow. Covers sleep, exercise, mindfulness, caffeine timing, chronotype, environmental design, and HRV as a cognitive readiness biomarker — with N=1 experiment protocols.

What mindfulness measurably changes, how large the effects are, and when the evidence is strong vs. overstated. Covers MBSR, MBCT, app-based delivery, neuroimaging findings, adverse effects, and dose-response for non-clinical populations.

Why learning styles have no empirical support, and what does work: spaced practice (d ≈ 0.8), retrieval practice, interleaving, and elaborative interrogation. Covers genuine individual variation in working memory, metacognitive accuracy, and expertise reversal.

Automaticity, cues, repetition, and identity in habit formation. Covers habit measurement, context change, discontinuity and relapse, and the distinction between habit formation and maintenance.

The psychology of streaks: goal-gradient effect, loss aversion, precommitment contracts, and identity reinforcement. Includes failure-mode taxonomy — streak obsession, all-or-nothing quitting — and design principles for durable consistency.

Social isolation's mortality risk, network effects on health behavior, group-based intervention evidence, and online community effects. Covers social norms, accountability structures, and how to design social features without creating comparison anxiety.