As a proper scientist, I decided to run an in-vivo home experiment on myself last year. Since I had become depressed, I wanted to find out what would make me happier again. You know these types of situations in which you know exactly what to do, what would be good and right to do, but, you just don't... Anyway, at some point, because it was the right day of my menstrual cycle or so, I decided to test three different interventions on myself.

1. Try caffeine pills to get my mood up just enough so that I can launch into a positive spiral.

2. Make a digital detox, including no connection to the internet for a week to reset my dopamine system, so that afterwards, every little thing would feel exciting as a skydive.

3. Just getting a dog for a day. You know that feeling when you watch a corgi with his short feet, the heart-formed butt, and the wiggly ears?

You know how all of this worked out neatly and had I ended the experiment here, I would have never been able to learn that

- the effect of the caffeine pills will fade within a few days, and they are therefore maximally useful as an on demand singular trick.

- the digital detox felt great after, but only because not detoxing was awful. Would you kick the door with your foot just to feel how the pain fades? Well, but this experiment doesn't show that, a few hours of detox, dedicated to an activity dear to you, can be magical.

- Okay, nothing can beat a dog, except for the dog is not a corgi. Then a corgi can. But you know how being with the dog didn't allow me to do anything else but interacting with him the whole day? Yes, I loved that little fluff, but also I felt guilty all the time when not giving him my full attention. The responsibility, the price, might simply not be wort the mood gain. This experiment doesn't show though that just looking at corgi gifs now and then might do the trick.

The morale of the story? Some things that seem like they work, actually don't, don't do longer-term or are not worth all the things that don't work as a consequence of having them.

Inga Grossmann

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