We're faced with so many options these days. Let's say you learn about a wellness practice that is supposed to improve your happiness. It sounds plausible- but how do you know it is good for YOU?
Some surprising advice for making good decisions is available. There is a fascinating researcher out there named Dr. Jeffrey A. Martin. Jeffrey began his Ph.D. program wanting to research the similarities and difference between studied psychological treatments and common "self help" advice. Where did they overlap and where did they differ?
He designed studies with groups of people who agreed to use an assigned self-help technique for the course of the research. Some people were randomly assigned to a control group, which did not follow the technique.
What his research group discovered was surprising. There was no one wellness practice that appeared to work for everyone, all the time. Instead, within a test group, several participants would experience positive results, several had neutral reactions, and while others would have negative results. The original research design had people use a wellness practice for three months, but they stopped after they recognized that within each group several people would experience negative results which made the study design unethical.
Two weeks were enough to show results. If people were going to have positive experiences with a wellness practice, they would start showing improvements within two weeks. On the other side, two weeks was not long enough for seriously bad consequences for people for whom the technique was not a good fit.
If you are curious about a wellness practice, consider giving it two weeks. If at the end of two weeks you are not experiencing positive results, it may be a good idea to stop in order to avoid negative results. If you are noticing an improvement, by all means continue!