Strategy 2: Do NOT get P-Hacked !?

AKA Stop BLINDLY following science. Yes we said it. It’s not as crazy as you may think. Just look up the term P-Hacking... better yet keep reading.

HERE IS WHY:

Typically you want to incorporate a habit into your life because it is proven to be effective by science. Things like cold showers, meditation, intermittent fasting, ect. But what does proven by science actually mean? Here is how scientific studies typically work.

They take 2 groups:

• A control group that does not do the habit.
• And the experiment group that does.

For example 100 people will meditate for 6 months and 100 will not.

After the study period, the scientists will compare the control group with the experiment group.

In order for a habit to be deemed effective the experiment group’s result must differ from the control group’s by a “statistical significance”.

So what does “statistical significance” mean?

This is where things hairy…

Is it 60%, 70%, 80%? There is simply no clear answer.

But 1 thing is for sure.

A habit can have no effect on YOU what’s so ever...

...in fact it can even have a negative effect on you….

...yet still be deemed effective by a scientific study.

Ready?…It gets even worse..

Just do a quick Google search for the term p-Hacking

Basically there is a common problem in the scientific community.

Many scientists want their theories to be proven right so badly they curve fit the data.

Meaning they may play with the results and the stats to show that the study worked even though it really did not.

Believe it or not this is WAY more common than you think.

The results of certain scientific studies do not always get duplicated.

2 really famous cases that caused controversy are Amy Cuddy’s work on Power Poses and the studies shown by the brain training app Lumosity.

We don’t want to talk any smack, In fact we really like Power Poses and Lumosity.

But just do a quick Google search for them and you will see that scientists do not always unanimously agree on what works.

Once again you simply don’t know if an activity is effective for YOU until you try it and see if it works for YOU.