Searching for Happy

A week ago, I started my experiment on Vitamins for the Brain.

Over the course of this experiment, I’ve been taking an Omega 3 Supplement. To see if it has been working, I’ve been tracking both my mood and my “brainpower”.

Omega 3: mood booster, brain supercharger, or all of the above?

Well, a week is a bit of a short-term period to make a conclusive statement about the mood boosting or brainpower improving ability of Omega 3. However, within the confines of this week, my experience has been generally quite positive.

On the 7th day of my experiment, my mood would be 9 out of 10, and my Sudoku time was 7 minutes and 37 seconds.

All I can say is WOW! To see how this compares with my other results, check out yesterday in the Vitamins for the Brain experiment.

Vitamins for the Brain – Conclusions

Well, the first one is the most obvious – my mood and brainpower have been more elevated since I began taking Omega 3 supplements this week. Some of the improvements in Sudoku time will be due to me simply getting better at Sudoku puzzles, but it seems to be more than that. While there are no guarantees, taking Omega 3 definitely seems to make me happier and smarter.

However, there was something I discovered this week that even more interesting. My Sudoku times moved up and down depending on my mood. A better mood was always paired with a better sudoku time.

Perhaps this is something I didn’t even know about myself earlier. Could it be that, in my head, I associate being clear-headed and quick-witted with being happy? Whether faster-thinking is a cause or a result of being happier, I think I can say that the two feelings are definitely linked for me.

I’ll have to ponder this more when I’m deciding on my forthcoming experiments.

Just a quick update for tonight, but it seems like that connection between my quickness of wit and my happiness continues. To see more about my thoughts on this, check out yesterday’s entry in the Vitamins for the Brain experiment.

Omega 3: mood booster, brain supercharger, or none of the above?

Well, the answer still might be “a little bit of everything”. My mood yesterday was good, but still a bit down from the day before. I would classify it as a solid 8, and my Sudoku time was 10 minutes and 22 seconds.

There’s little risk of me achieving Sudoku mastery through this experiment, but the interesting results continue!

Well, so far the results for this experiment appear to be all over the map. To see how dramatically they are varying, check out yesterday’s results in the Vitamins for the Brain experiment.

Just to remind you, my omega 3 supplement for this week is:

Omega 3: mood booster, brain supercharger, or none of the above?

Well, my mood on day 2 of this experiment was a 7 out of 10. Yesterday, on day 3 of this happiness experiment, it was a 9 out of 10.

Yes, that’s right, a 9. Wow, talk about a great flip! It was a crazy and hectic day, but I kept a positive momentum going and kept my head above water. There’s something really, truly magnificent about facing a day of challenges and coming out on top of them!

Now, the mood differences could easily be explained by succeeding at all my challenges yesterday. Let’s face it, succeeding feels good and failing feels bad. But, that’s the reason I didn’t do this experiment on mood based indicators alone. What were my Sudoku results on day 3?

I finished my puzzle in 9 minutes and 27 seconds. That’s better than my first day of the experiment, and MUCH better than my results on day 2 of this experiment. It’s still far too early to be conclusive, but perhaps Omega 3 can improve brainpower!

This week, my experiment involves the use of Omega 3 supplements to see how they impact mood and improve brainpower.

Let’s start with a step back to the basics…

What is Omega 3

According to Wikipedia:

Omega 3 fatty acids (also called ω−3 fatty acids or n−3 fatty acids[1]) are fats commonly found in marine and plant oils. They are polyunsaturated fatty acids with a double bond (C=C) starting after the third carbon atom from the end of the carbon chain. The fatty acids have two ends—the acid (COOH) end and the methyl (CH3) end. The location of the first double bond is counted from the methyl end, which is also known as the omega (ω) end or the n end.

That’s a lot of scientific talk, but the important part of this experiment is that Omega 3 is supposed to have benefits both for brainpower and for mood – hence the saying “vitamins for the brain“. I’ll be testing both of these this week.

Each day of this week, I will be charting my mood out of 10, and working to complete a Sudoku puzzle. We’ll see if my mood improves or if I improve my brainpower!

Vitamins for the Brain – Day 1

Day 1 of this experiment was done without Omega 3 Vitamins for the purpose of having a “control” day.

On the first day of my experiment, I took 10 minutes and 3 seconds to complete a sudoku puzzle, and I would rank my mood at 6.5 out of 10. Let’s see what the next week holds!