OK, I tried this a couple times today, with disappointing results. I was trying to use it to help me focus on a video lecture I was watching, but I found it pretty hard to maintain any sustained increase in my level of activation… even when I got it to spike temporarily, it would immediately start going down. Also, the fact that it read data from my fingers meant I couldn’t use that hand to create spaced repetition cards. Overall, it served as way more of a distraction than an asset, and I don’t think I noticed any focus benefits immediately afterwards when I stopped using it and restarted the video I was watching from the beginning.
It’s conceivable that you could make this work through a gradual increase rather than sudden spiking, or configure the dial so that it would only start to make noise once your level of activation went below some threshold. I might experiment with those ideas in the future.
If you want increased alertness, there are other hacks in the thread for that, like D_Malik’s ideas of blue-tinted glasses or spraying/splashing water on your face (and of course there’s always caffeine etc.) Supposedly yawning also improves alertness.
Hmm, okay. I was considering trying it on its own, rather than while doing something else. I know I wasn’t able to do autogenics exercises while trying to do something else before, and now I sort of can after having practiced, so I would expect it to go poorly to try to go the other direction for the first time while otherwise occupied.
After you mentioned this I realized I have all the parts on hand to make a DIY galvanic skin response sensor. I got the hardware set up, and now I’m working on getting the software set up in a nice way. Hopefully it will work out :-)
OK, I tried this a couple times today, with disappointing results. I was trying to use it to help me focus on a video lecture I was watching, but I found it pretty hard to maintain any sustained increase in my level of activation… even when I got it to spike temporarily, it would immediately start going down. Also, the fact that it read data from my fingers meant I couldn’t use that hand to create spaced repetition cards. Overall, it served as way more of a distraction than an asset, and I don’t think I noticed any focus benefits immediately afterwards when I stopped using it and restarted the video I was watching from the beginning.
It’s conceivable that you could make this work through a gradual increase rather than sudden spiking, or configure the dial so that it would only start to make noise once your level of activation went below some threshold. I might experiment with those ideas in the future.
If you want increased alertness, there are other hacks in the thread for that, like D_Malik’s ideas of blue-tinted glasses or spraying/splashing water on your face (and of course there’s always caffeine etc.) Supposedly yawning also improves alertness.
Hmm, okay. I was considering trying it on its own, rather than while doing something else. I know I wasn’t able to do autogenics exercises while trying to do something else before, and now I sort of can after having practiced, so I would expect it to go poorly to try to go the other direction for the first time while otherwise occupied.
After you mentioned this I realized I have all the parts on hand to make a DIY galvanic skin response sensor. I got the hardware set up, and now I’m working on getting the software set up in a nice way. Hopefully it will work out :-)