I probably don’t need to tell you that the more we experience in life the closer we get to knowing exactly who we are. I imagine that as college students we are all trying to gain the highest amount of knowledge that we can, in order to grow into the greatest versions of ourselves that we can be.
I can offer you this, though: a great idea to help you find out exactly who you are, what you are made of, and what you want to be. It’s called Self-Experimentation or as some of you may have heard, lifehacking. Self Experimentation is a process of tying something new or altering a certain habit with the intention of fully experiencing an alternate habit or lifestyle characteristic.
In early 2007 I was introduced to such self experimentation by Steve Pavlina. He has used 30 day trials to introduce many new habits into his lifestyle, including vegetarianism, veganism, polyphasic sleep, and many more. Pavlina’s 30 day trials inspired me to try a few of my own. I tried a vegetarian diet for 30 days early in 2007 and ended up living a vegetarian lifestyle for over 7 months. It was a great experience, and to be quite honest a great test in discipline and mental strength, especially considering that not only did I not have any moral issues with eating meat, but also that I really love eating meat.
The beauty of the 30 day trial is that if you can make it through the 30 days, you’ll find that you can easily make it longer. I’m a testament to that fact, considering my 7 month long vegetarian diet. Now I’m experimenting with something even more drastic: Biphasic Sleep. It is the first of many experiments to come that I will be documenting daily on my new blog BrainVault.net.
Self Experimentation improves your lifestyle not only by having you practice new things, but also by developing greater mental strength and discipline. I experienced a whole new level of work ethic after I self-experimented with a heavy physical fitness program. I jump started my health with swimming. I decided that the only way to go was go big, so I chose to swim every single day for 30 days. It was gruesome at first, but I had to prove to myself that I was capable. After I completed the 30 days successfully I continued swimming every day for 3 more months. Then I started implementing weight lifting, basketball, cycling, running, and pretty much any other physical activity I could submerge myself into.
Now I’m 10 months into new healthier lifestyle, I’m 29 lbs lighter (including the weight in muscle gained) and I feel like I am up to any challenge placed in front of me. I have an increased mental strength that I just didn’t have before, and had I not started these 30 day trials I can’t say that I ever would have.
I’ve enjoyed my 30 day trials so much that I created another blog to continue to experience them, document them, and share my experiences about them. That alone is a testament to the importance of self experimentation. It’s fun and easy. Just pick something that you’ve always wanted to experience, or a habit that you’ve always wanted and commit to a 30 day trail. For added benefit, journal your experiences each evening or morning. You’ll find that within weeks you will have many interesting experiences to talk about and that you will be that much closer a better you.
To follow me through my biphasic and other personal experiments check out BrainVault.net, or even better subscribe to the BrainVault RSS Feed.
