Lew Perin6d ago

Maybe you remember I got interested in Camellia crassicolumna because of the alleged causal relationship between (1) the length of time from your last caffeine intake to your head hitting the pillow and (2) the amount of deep sleep you get that night.

Well, I now have 21 days' worth of data in a scatter plot with a linear trendline fitted, and I’d say "scatter" is an understatement. It’s my understanding that an R^2 of 0.0145 is pitiful even in biology. I’ve tried fitting other types of curves without better results.

You might notice the absence of any values of caffeine-free hours < 5. Maybe I should take one for the team by drinking C. sinensis closer to bedtime?

Aside from that, does anyone better versed in statistics than I have something to say?

@tea

Show threadwizardwes6d ago
@babelcarp @tea only 21 samples for one person is way too low. The noise is going to overwhelm the data at that point, especially if you're not controlling for other factors. For example, if you were working out on some, but not all days, then you might see two stronger trends if you graphed those days separately, instead of one weak one
Show threadLew Perin6d ago

@wizardwes How many samples do you suggest?

@tea

Show threadEastern Long-Whiskered Billy6d ago
@babelcarp @wizardwes @tea like a year
Show threadwizardwes6d ago
@parslii @babelcarp @tea or more. Also, you should probably compare sticking to a consistent-ish timing over a period, rather than shotgunning the times over different days. That way you can better control for aspects of your life that might otherwise influence your caffeine timing.
Show threadLew Perin6d ago

@wizardwes I’m tempted to reply, “easy for you to say.” You’re urging me to keep up this project for 10-20 times as long as I already have.

But honestly, I don’t see the mathematical reasoning behind what you recommend.

@parslii @tea

Show threadEastern Long-Whiskered Billy5d ago
@babelcarp @wizardwes @tea there are a lot of variables that effect how well you sleep. you aren't living perfectly choreographed days that are different only in your caffeine consumption. i think it sounds like a really messy hypothesis to test. to tease out what caffeine does to your sleep, you may need to account for other things too. how much exercise? how many calories? when did you eat or exercise? rate your stress level for the day on a scale of 1 to 10? are there seasonal things that effect your sleep?
Show threadwizardwes5d ago
@parslii @babelcarp @tea 100% that's why I was saying in a previous message that you'd want to do a consistent timing over a period of time, that way, hopefully, the randomness of life would balance out over that period
Show threadLew Perin

@wizardwes The “randomness of life” is a rubric for a set of factors that together appear to have far greater explanatory power than caffeine taken in >= 5 hours before bedtime.

@parslii @tea

Mar 15 at 6:08pmWeb