Regression to the Mean: Why You Feel Better After You Hit Bottom (Even If the Treatment Did Nothing)

Summary

When you measure something at its extreme — your worst pain day, your highest blood pressure reading, your lowest mood — the next measurement will, on average, drift back toward your own baseline *even if you did nothing*, because the extreme was partly noise and noise doesn't repeat. People seek help at their worst, naturally drift back, and credit whatever they did in between. This statistical artefact, **regression to the mean**, fakes the appearance of benefit across self-experiments, clinics, and before-after studies. The honest read of an uncontrolled improvement isn't "it worked" *or* "