Biorhythms Revisited

 

My productivity certainly ebbs and flows.  I am writing about it today because my productivity is on the ebb side.  If we consider writing blog posts, there are times where I can crank out a blog post in 45 minutes to an hour.  There are other times when writing a post is like slogging through mud.  This post in particular? it has taken me over twelve hours, in dribs and drabs, to write this one. 

This oscillation between the peaks and valleys of productivity is why the concept of biorhythms intrigued me so between my impressionable sophomore years, 1968-1972.  Well, I am probably exaggerating here, it intrigued me but not nearly as much as some of my contemporaries, back in the day, who wholeheartedly bought into biorhythms. 

One thing, I have learned over the years is that there are peaks and valleys in regard to my own productivity.  But, unlike the biorhythm theory, where there is an assumption of fixed and repeated intervals between the ebbs and flows, I see no discernable pattern in my own case.  These periods come and go unpredictably.  Their duration and amplitude is equally unpredictable. 

I wondered if the pseudoscience of biorhythms might actually be true or perhaps partially true?  Are the ups and downs and intervals in between predictable like a series of three sine waves, as in the graphic, or is there a stochastic component for amplitude, duration, and the mean time between the peaks and valleys?  Is there any correlation to the cycles of the moon?  Workload?  Looming due dates?

My conjecture is that there is indeed a stochastic element to all of this.  There may also be causal factors which in my case are probably workload, due dates, and who knows what?  This would be a fun study, but I am not sure how I would even go about collecting the data to do such a data.  All I can think of is to track feelings, moods, and percent of daily to do lists accomplished.  This sounds kind of tedious.

Needless to say, I did an internet search on this.  There are many scholarly articles that looked into the validity of biorhythms.  I could not access any of the articles and as I am in a low productivity value, I did not pursue trying to access them via the North Park library.  I did, however, find an article in The New York Times from December 25, 1977.  The article, Biorhythms: Fact or Fiction, was written by Roger N. Johnson, Professor of Psychology, Ramapo College, Mahwah, NJ.  Professor Johnson focused on the sports in the article, “Sports provide a natural outlet for pop psychology.  What better way to account for the mysterious ups and downs that cause victory and defeat.”  In the end, the professor came to the same conclusion I did, but more articulately and a cool 46 years earlier:  If people

…were serious about bodily rhythms, they would throw away their computer printouts and keep a detailed diary of their moods and habits.  After many months or years, they might discover personal regularities.

 It is an intriguing question and problem but there is little likelihood I will ever try to keep such a diary and analyze.  I mean I really only think about researching this when I am in a productivity lull like I am right now which doesn’t bode well for actually accomplishing starting and keeping a tedious diary. 

Oh well.