>>(a) notice when they're happening an abnormal amount (which often takes me a couple days, when I get sick)
As long as you *do* tend to notice eventually, writing it down when it comes to your attention with a note of "come to think of it, this has been going on for [as good a retrospective estimate as you can make], but I hadn't paid it much mind before" is a lot better than nothing.
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>>(b) decide when the abnormal amount in question is beyond the cutoff point between "normal unremarkable fluctuation" and "Something Happening"
I try to err on the side of noting bad-end-of-normal days just in case it comes in handy later.
With such a high overlap between the kind of symptoms you get from normal fluctuations and the kind of symptoms you get from illness, you might find it helpful to mark today's levels of [sneezing frequency, thirstiness, fatigue, etc] on 1 - 10 scales or something along those lines.
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While not *everyone* can cultivate an unobtrusive health-monitoring background subroutine in their brain--just as not everyone can learn to balance on a bicycle--I think for the most part it does get easier as you get more practice. It's still fairly early days for me, but I think I'm beginning to see that happening.
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>>Also hindering my attempts at health-logging: getting used to things.
I think that one *is* addressed in the thread, which recommends re-reading the previous day as a reminder to note down "oh yeah, that thing that was bothering me yesterday is still here" or "come to think of it, that one's actually gone now". A one-day buffer won't help against relapsing-remitting problems, but perhaps once you catch a problem doing that you can add it to a list of suspects.
I do have some days of missing data, neglecting to note down today's severity of [an issue I've been having most days, with fluctuating but very gradually worsening-on-average intensity, for ~1.5 years]: I try to move on from that loss and do what I can in the future. Especially on that one, because that's something where I wish I'd started making at least *some* notes on it sooner.
no subject
As long as you *do* tend to notice eventually, writing it down when it comes to your attention with a note of "come to think of it, this has been going on for [as good a retrospective estimate as you can make], but I hadn't paid it much mind before" is a lot better than nothing.
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>>(b) decide when the abnormal amount in question is beyond the cutoff point between "normal unremarkable fluctuation" and "Something Happening"
I try to err on the side of noting bad-end-of-normal days just in case it comes in handy later.
With such a high overlap between the kind of symptoms you get from normal fluctuations and the kind of symptoms you get from illness, you might find it helpful to mark today's levels of [sneezing frequency, thirstiness, fatigue, etc] on 1 - 10 scales or something along those lines.
---
While not *everyone* can cultivate an unobtrusive health-monitoring background subroutine in their brain--just as not everyone can learn to balance on a bicycle--I think for the most part it does get easier as you get more practice. It's still fairly early days for me, but I think I'm beginning to see that happening.
---
>>Also hindering my attempts at health-logging: getting used to things.
I think that one *is* addressed in the thread, which recommends re-reading the previous day as a reminder to note down "oh yeah, that thing that was bothering me yesterday is still here" or "come to think of it, that one's actually gone now". A one-day buffer won't help against relapsing-remitting problems, but perhaps once you catch a problem doing that you can add it to a list of suspects.
I do have some days of missing data, neglecting to note down today's severity of [an issue I've been having most days, with fluctuating but very gradually worsening-on-average intensity, for ~1.5 years]: I try to move on from that loss and do what I can in the future. Especially on that one, because that's something where I wish I'd started making at least *some* notes on it sooner.