[nsguy]

I would say your foundation should be the science and you can fine tune to your personal experience. If you're starting from personal experience you're just going to miss out on the wealth of pre-existing knowledge and are likely very far from optimal if not completely wasting your time. AKA reinventing the wheel.

This would be similar to going to the gym and trying to figure out what works for you for gaining strength or muscle mass while ignoring the research/existing knowledge. Very likely you'll get nowhere. The proper approach is to do the research, start from a well supported base, and then fine tune to your own body/requirements.

[Glench]

I mean yeah, but we never start from nothing of course! Totally agree. But our experience should always be the ground truth we test against and if the science disagrees then we should hold the science lightly or ignore it. But if the science offers us something that works in our direct experience then great! And there is a progressive feedback loop as we continue to notice more about our experience and also learn more from research. That's been my experience anyway :)