Saturday 29 January 2011

Positive Feedback: How a tiny push can make all the difference.

As an ex-Electronic Engineer, I'm very familiar with the effects of Positive Feedback in electronic circuits. The Schmitt trigger is a classic example of a slowly-changing input resulting in a suddenly-changing output.


While I was chatting to another visitor in mum's nursing home yesterday, I had a "Eureka!" moment. I was talking to her about my sudden mood changes when the bleedin' obvious suddenly occurred to me.

When my mood starts to fall, I start doing less. This lowers my mood further. This forms a vicious circle and my mood suddenly falls to a low value and stays there, with me lying in bed/on the sofa feeling like crap and not blogging.

When my mood starts to rise, I start doing more. This raises my mood further. This forms a virtuous circle and my mood suddenly rises to a high value and stays there, with me walking, scrumping, photographing, Zumba-ing and blogging all about it.

So, do something that you think you can't do. You'll feel better for it!

F.A.O. anyone who links to my blog: The title has changed. It's now:-

Nige's Diet & Nutrition Blog
Diet, Nutrition & Fitness Information + Random stuff.

Please update your links. Thanks.

2 comments:

praguestepchild said...

Feedback control systems, a rather fascinating EE sub-field. I ended up specializing in e-mag, but this would have probably been my second choice..

Nigel Kinbrum said...

Dr. Richard K. Bernstein (the Diabetologist) was an Engineer before he became a Doctor.

Nerds rock! :-D