User Manual of Me

Discover how your own body works

An experiment where everyone studies themselves

Experiment · Everyone studies themselves

How quickly does your body respond?

Pulse72beats / min

My pulse log

Resting—

Right after—

After 1 min—

After 3 min—

Your body is an amazing delivery system

From every breath to every muscle

Lungs

Oxygen

Blood

Heart

Muscles

Muscle demand

Low

Breaths / min

14

Heartbeats / min

72

Muscles need more energy→They need more oxygen→Breathing speeds up→Heart pumps faster

When demand drops, a healthy system moves back towards rest.

Your body continually senses demand and adjusts.

Health determines your available capacity

Your available energy

What makes your body more capable tomorrow, and what makes it less capable?

Talk to the person next to you for 30 seconds.

Charges it

Drains it

You may have time, intelligence and opportunity. But if your body has little energy, you can't use them as well.

Your body sends you information

What does your body tell you when you…

Learning to notice these signals is part of learning how to manage yourself.

Your body responds to psychological demand too

Running for 60 seconds

Same body, different demand

Waiting to give a speech

Pulse72

But where is the tiger?

The body can respond strongly even when the challenge is happening mainly in the mind.

Health is a resource multiplier

Each step multiplies the next

You only get one body to carry all your other resources.

Learn to use it well.

Bonus station · Peak flow

How much can we learn about our body with one simple measurement?

Best of three

Deep breath in… then one short, hard blast

Peak flow measures how fast you can push air out, in litres per minute.

Try 1

—

Try 2

—

Try 3

—

A vague impression

"I feel a bit breathless today."

Information

"My peak flow is 390. My usual best is 480. That's about 20% lower."

The idea

Measurement turns vague impressions into information.