A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

Yes I think a lot of the downfall of middle age men is lifestyle rather than genetic, they tend to get fat and unhealthy.

Whoa, I think we could replace “middle age men” there with just “humans.”

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda:

I actually think it is genetic, most likely protective effect of estrogen. Even the men who work on staying trim and fit seem to become shrunken and brittle faster on average. There's a difference between the guy who's so out of shape at 40 that he already looks 60, and the guy who looks 80 at 65. Would you rather be with a still pretty muscular guy with more than a bit of a gut or a skinny shanked guy with dust in his eyebrows and droopy wrinkles on his butt?

[zbigi]

I've decided I might be willing to go as young as 45, and may shop internationally if necessary. YMMV.

Does that mean that if a super hot 40 year old showed at your doorstep, you'd go "naah, too young"? Why?

[Ego]

In passing he referred to a relatively new study that identified a certain REM sleep pattern as symptomatic of early stage cognitive decline/Alzheimer's. I went back and reviewed some of my Oura sleep stage data and I exhibit the pattern he described. Not every night, but most nights. Johnson was telling the interviewer that he believes the #1 thing that drives his health accomplishments is how well he sleeps, and that the large majority of what he does is intended to drive excellent sleep. And the REM pattern was just a passing topic in that relatively short facet of the discussion. So there's a lot I don't know. But for now I'm alarmed.

This piqued my curiosity so I did a little digging. It seems, Isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD) is the diagnosis that is so alarming. Is this the one you were referring to?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9363360

It is now acknowledged as a prodromal phase of neurodegenerative disease—approximately 80% of people with iRBD will develop dementia with Lewy Bodies, Parkinson’s disease or another degenerative brain disease within 10 years.

Holy crap, that is alarming. What I don't understand is what data your Oura ring is providing that leads you to believe you suffer from iRBD. That study says that the symptoms are....

(iRBD) is characterised by dream enactment behaviours, such as kicking and punching while asleep, and vivid/violent dreams.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something?

[7Wannabe5]

Does that mean that if a super hot 40 year old showed at your doorstep, you'd go "naah, too young"? Why?

1) Creepy cradle-snatcher feeling. My adult kids are in their mid-30s.
2) Vanity/dismay at how relatively old and less hot I appear. Makes me awkward. One time when I did date a guy who was quite hawt 37 to my 52, I felt compelled to meet him wearing an over-sized sunhat, like an actress of my mother's generation, but not so skinny.
3) Because Millennial generation stretched out their childhood much longer than an old Gen-X like me, quite likely would be too many life-phases behind me to be compatible. For example, I have no interest in relationship with somebody who still has young children and is going through first divorce.
4) Really, I am only stretching down to 45, because my sisters estimated that the only guy of interest who has pursued me initially in real life setting in recent years might be as young as 45. IOW, if I look at somebody and can't be sure whether they are 45 or 65 then that human seems to be within my dating range.
5) The rational reason I would choose to date somebody younger is that when my MIL was around my current age she was dating a man more than 15 years older than her and one of her best friends was living with a man who was 15 years younger, and even though her BF was much better looking and more affluent, she thought her friend had the better deal, because the chubby, less affluent 45 year old was much more useful than a man over 75. IOW, it's like running Consumer Reports or Blue Book calculation on 5 year old, not very well-maintained, inexpensive when manufactured car vs. 30 year old, well-maintained, luxury car. Unless, you just want to take it out for Sunday drives on sunny days, you are better off with the newer model.

[IlliniDave]

Yes I think a lot of the downfall of middle age men is lifestyle rather than genetic, they tend to let themselves go health wise.

Yep. ED is basically a first symptom of the body losing it's ability to produce nitric oxide. As humans age their ability to produce NO naturally wanes. NO is important for vascular flexibility and vasodilation, so it's importance to male reproductive health is obvious, but it also affects females as certain tissues in females also become engorged with blood in healthy sexual response, and waning NO negatively impacts that too. There are lifestyle factors that exacerbate natural age-related declines in NO production. Among them are fluoride in drinking water and toothpaste, antiseptic and/or fluoride-containing mouthwash, chronic use of PPI drugs, and nitrite-deficient and/or and inflammatory diets. As insufficient NO production continues and worsens it's also implicated in high blood pressure, cardiovasular disease, peripheral artery disease, and general oxygen starvation in organs. ED in midlife men is sort of the canary in the coalmine. Hypotheses linking neurodegenerative conditions in the brain to insufficient NO is ongoing. So it may be the case that absence of ED and absence of neurodegeneration in the brain are co-symptomatic of sufficient NO production in the body rather than one being causal to the other. We depend on the oral microbiome, the gut microbiome, stomach acidity, and the ability to produce certain enzymes (which might be microbiome dependent, I don't remember) to ensure the body maintains sufficient ability to deliver NO where it is needed.

[7Wannabe5]

NO is important for vascular flexibility and vasodilation, so it's importance to male reproductive health is obvious, but it also affects females as certain tissues in females also become engorged with blood in healthy sexual response, and waning NO negatively impacts that too.

Very true. And as with many such health indicators, women are too often ignored in the research, because they are less likely to complain about declining sexual function to the point that many of them do not even ask for second opinion on hysterectomy for relatively minor problems. One easy way to gauge oxygen flow to genital area if you are a woman with pale skin is to observe whether the color of your vulvar region is fading from youthful tone. Maybe make use of a hand mirror and some paint-chip swatches to set a baseline for yourself prior to menopause. I have also read that there may be some correlation with gray hair production or hair thinning. Typical pattern for men is that facial hair goes gray before head hair and pubic hair is last. Women follow same pattern, but it is harder to judge facial hair by the occasional stray, so eyebrows may be more indicative. This is why the advertisements for older humans featuring humans who look otherwise quite young except for their silver hair are more than a bit misleading. There are a minority of humans who go gray early for reasons not associated with aging, but they are the minority.

[IlliniDave]

This piqued my curiosity so I did a little digging. It seems, Isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD) is the diagnosis that is so alarming. Is this the one you were referring to? ...

No, at least I don't think so, although I do get scores for restlessness during sleep that are suboptimal frequently, but what few dreams I do remember aren't violent or anything.

When a person falls asleep the normal progression of sleep stages is light sleep->deep sleep->REM sleep, a cycle that usually repeats several times throughout the night. The initial cycle of that usually causes the first REM cycle to appear around 90 minutes after falling asleep. It's usually a short REM cycle, ~10 minutes in length. Apparently people are learning that although short, that first early cycle is very important in preparing the brain for all the restorative processes healthy sleep entails--you could say it prepares the field for planting. The symptom I observe via Oura is that frequently I miss that first REM cycle, and don't get into REM sleep until around 4ish hours after falling asleep. Maybe most relevant is that early REM cycle appears to be critical for embedding memory. Missing it also apparently affects certain areas of the brain in ways that result in increased cortisol production.

There are several causes that can result in generally disturbed REM functioning: sleep disorders, psychiatric disorders, some drugs/medications, and neurodegenerative conditions in the brain. I can rule out psychiatric disorders and drugs/medications (I take none). So that leaves nerodegenerative disease and sleep disorders. I don't think I have any specific sleep disorders per say (i.e., something that would be diagnosed as this or that), but I'm not a champion sleeper. So that's where the motivation to double down on efforts to improve sleep comes from. Rather than a formal sleep disorder I'm thinking just having poor sleep quality could disrupt that initial cycle, and if I can fix something in my lifestyle, routine, or environment that allows me to sleep better I'm hoping I'll get that initial REM cycle back more consistently. It's not that I never achieve the early REM cycle, but I very often do not. A back of the envelope observation is that when I have relatively good nights of sleep for my typical ranges (which are not especially good compared to what conventional wisdom calls 'optimal', just "adequate"), I'm more likely to have normal/healthy timing of my first REM cycle.

Unfortunately, I don't really know the whole story behind the allegedly new study that connects that first REM cycle to Alzheimer's. It was just mentioned in passing in a way that I interpreted to imply the results implicated very early stage Alzheimer's as a mechanism for the failure to achieve that first REM cycle around the 90-minute mark. I have to admit that I'm a little extra sensitive all things dementia being immersed in it 6-7 days a week with my dad. People don't really know what exactly causes Alzheimer's yet, but there seems to several potential mechanisms including a genetic component for some cases. I think the surge in occurrence over the last 20-30 years is mostly attributable to lifestyle/metabolic factors, where the "Type III diabetes" moniker comes in. Environmental toxins and the increasingly widespread use of prescribed psychiatric drugs could play a role too. I should also note that my dad has not been formally diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, only with "mild dementia" although he's worsened since that diagnosis was made.

[IlliniDave]

Very true. And as with many such health indicators, women are too often ignored in the research, because they are less likely to complain about declining sexual function to the point that many of them do not even ask for second opinion on hysterectomy for relatively minor problems. One easy way to gauge oxygen flow to genital area if you are a woman with pale skin is to observe whether the color of your vulvar region is fading from youthful tone. Maybe make use of a hand mirror and some paint-chip swatches to set a baseline for yourself prior to menopause. I have also read that there may be some correlation with gray hair production or hair thinning. Typical pattern for men is that facial hair goes gray before head hair and pubic hair is last. Women follow same pattern, but it is harder to judge facial hair by the occasional stray, so eyebrows may be more indicative. This is why the advertisements for older humans featuring humans who look otherwise quite young except for their silver hair are more than a bit misleading. There are a minority of humans who go gray early for reasons not associated with aging, but they are the minority.

NO was only "discovered" around year 2000, give or take (resulted in a Nobel prize) and the vascular health aspect has not been bifurcated by sex, as it's not sex dependent. It is possible that women don't notice it as readily (the lack of engorgement/swelling of the clitoris and labia, which could be called "female ED", is less outwardly obvious), and it does not carry anywhere near the social stigma for them as it does for men, perhaps unfairly so. Health is health irrespective of gender and a canary in the coalmine is a canary in the coalmine, also irrespective of gender, as is true for the more serious life-threatening conditions that lie downstream of it.

As it is, my canary is still singing away, so I don't have any reason to connect the dysfunctional in my REM patterns to NO deficiency nor sexual function, although it's possible that the REM dysfunction will replace ED as the canary in the coalmine for as the first observable (assuming a person invests in the technology to look) of vascular problems and what lies downstream.

[7Wannabe5]

I thought it was interesting that in the big dementia study that was just released they discovered that early childhood education was one of the most significant factors in dementia. Apparently a sort of brain "reserve" that serves you throughout the rest of your life is created before age 6. Having spent a good deal of time teaching and tutoring young children from a wide variety of backgrounds, I can grok why this would be true. So, it's also the case that some late life behaviors such as reading or doing puzzles may just be correlative to early life brain experience.

Anyways, I am sorry if I vibed insensitive to your current situation with your Dad with my joking (and real concern about women's sexual health matters) above. My mother at almost 85 is quite decrepit in terms of mobility, but still quite sharp mentally, so it's not a top concern for me. What I really need to get focused on is strength training in conjunction with some weight loss. I want to see how heavy with muscle and butt-thigh-fat-based-estrogen-reserve I can be and still achieve tight waist-to-hip ratio below .75. I'm off to spend the day with 15 3 year olds, so the constant squatting will hopefully get me started.

[Scott 2]

How confident are you the Oura ring can accurately detect sleep stages? When I looked into self-monitoring, it was because I didn't like what my Fitbit showed. Digging further, I concluded one needed a bed integrated system for accurate data. It's been a few years though.

Bryan Johnson's documentary struck me as a cautionary tale. He's so busy not dying, he's missing living. Dude seems super into and maybe incapable of other paths. But I'm trying to squeeze some hedonism in before I go. Suppose I'm not sold on the concept of longevity escape velocity.

[IlliniDave]

How confident are you the Oura ring can accurately detect sleep stages? When I looked into self-monitoring, it was because I didn't like what my Fitbit showed. Digging further, I concluded one needed a bed integrated system for accurate data. It's been a few years though.

Bryan Johnson's documentary struck me as a cautionary tale. He's so busy not dying, he's missing living. Dude seems super into and maybe incapable of other paths. But I'm trying to squeeze some hedonism in before I go. Suppose I'm not sold on the concept of longevity escape velocity.

Hey Scott,

I think it's fairly accurate. Every night before I go to sleep I read in bed for 15-45 minutes as part of my wind down ritual. Oura identifies the time I get in bed with spooky accuracy. Every night I note what time I go lights out and have to adjust the Oura sleep stage data so I don't get 'penalized' in my sleep score for excessive sleep latency. I know it also identifies periods where I wake up during the night very well. I'm less confident about how precisely it identifies sleep stage transitions, but aside from the missing early REM cycle I've been talking about, it seems reasonable compared to other data I've looked at. For a wearable I think it's pretty solid. But you're right, if I was ever looking for a positive medical diagnosis of something where medical intervention is possibly called for, I would probably at least want a "second opinion" from a more comprehensive measurement system.

The interview I saw flashed up what looked identical to the sleep stage graph I get from my Oura, and he (Johnson) mentioned Oura by name. But it wasn't clear Oura was the device he was using. Maybe several of the wearables copy the same graph styles and plotting conventions.

I have not watched his documentary yet. In the interview he was asked to comment on his being so busy trying to live forever that he doesn't have time to actually live at all. His answer was that what he's doing is his passion, and why should he abandon pursuit of what he's passionate about to conform to someone else's idea of what it means to live. I don't think I'd really want his lifestyle (again, didn't actually see the documentary), and I'm skeptical that eternal life is achievable (even with all he's doing, he's still aging, just slower than typical). Like we've talked about before, I just want to stretch my healthy years as close to end of life as I can. (without my brain turning to mush with a decade or more to go).

[Ego]

In the interview he was asked to comment on his being so busy trying to live forever that he doesn't have time to actually live at all. His answer was that what he's doing is his passion, and why should he abandon pursuit of what he's passionate about to conform to someone else's idea of what it means to live.

One of the reasons I enjoy your recent transition is because you prove the thesis that a retiree can tailor their passion to things that are in their best long-term interest, rather than simply following the herd or - more commonly - being driven by their unchecked appetites.

WRT sleep trackers... I agree with Scott. My garmin watch produces garbage sleep data. It frequently gets my sleep times wrong and I rarely feel good or bad in sync with good or bad sleep scores. On the other hand, I find that HRV is in sync with how I feel. A great morning workout will often follow a high HRV night and visa versa. I have stopped checking HRV until after my workout because I do not want it to influence my mindset going into the activity. I find it fascinating how HRV fluctuates as we move. For some strange reason, Bangkok elicits super high HRV sleep for me. We stayed in two different apartments in Luang Prabang. One produced very high HRV, the other caused it to crash. High in Chiang Mai. Super low in Salerno, Italy. I am not sure what is going on, but if I were a betting person, I would gamble on HRV being the more useful measurement produced by the trackers.

[theanimal]

I don't think I have any specific sleep disorders per say (i.e., something that would be diagnosed as this or that), but I'm not a champion sleeper. So that's where the motivation to double down on efforts to improve sleep comes from.

Do you snore? My thoughts are that even a mild form of sleep apnea would cause interruptions and less REM sleep.

I'm sure you've tried sleeping in different positions. There is another easy option that could be worth pursuing. I snore occasionally and decided to try using a mouthguard (SnoreRX in particular) to see if it improved my sleep at all. I found it too uncomfortable so I ended up returning it after 30 days, but it is very highly reviewed and apparently has worked for others.

[IlliniDave]

One of the reasons I enjoy your recent transition is because you prove the thesis that a retiree can tailor their passion to things that are in their best long-term interest, rather than simply following the herd or - more commonly - being driven by their unchecked appetites.

WRT sleep trackers... I agree with Scott. My garmin watch produces garbage sleep data. It frequently gets my sleep times wrong and I rarely feel good or bad in sync with good or bad sleep scores. On the other hand, I find that HRV is in sync with how I feel. A great morning workout will often follow a high HRV night and visa versa. I have stopped checking HRV until after my workout because I do not want it to influence my mindset going into the activity. I find it fascinating how HRV fluctuates as we move. For some strange reason, Bangkok elicits super high HRV sleep for me. We stayed in two different apartments in Luang Prabang. One produced very high HRV, the other caused it to crash. High in Chiang Mai. Super low in Salerno, Italy. I am not sure what is going on, but if I were a betting person, I would gamble on HRV being the more useful measurement produced by the trackers.

Hey Ego,

Thanks. We all have our muses we follow and to me that's the beauty of ere/FIRE, it allows a person a lot of freedom to do so if they're willing to put in the effort to pursue it.

After Scott's post yesterday I did some digging and found this:

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24/20/6532

Supposedly the "gold standard" in sleep assessment is polysomnography (PSG) and for REM Oura tracked PSG with 76% agreement, based on my interpretation of Table 2 in the study. Since PSG itself requires a human interpreter, and interpreter-to-interpreter there's about 83% agreement when it comes to sleep stage assignment*, I'm not sure how 76% agreement boils down to an absolute accuracy number. Apple Watch tracked PSG a little better for REM and Fitbit a little worse. Oura seemed to score best overall (across all phases), which isn't a shock since I believe Oura was designed as a sleep tracker first, then added functionality for fitness and such, and I think the converse was true for the other two devices. The differences between all the wearables for tracking as compared to PSG aren't striking.

Interestingly, in the Figure 4 "hypnogram" (new term for me, but it's essentially the same plot I get from Oura every night) the example subject, per PSG, Oura, and Apple, did not have an initial REM cycle 90 minutes after going to sleep, but on Fitbit did register REM at approximately 90 minutes.

So there's definitely some variances from the gold standard, which itself has some fuzziness. I wouldn't say the devices in general, and Oura specifically, are garbage or anything. They just have to be viewed with some reasonable caution.

Oura's biggest weakness IMO is it's fitness-type tracking. I generally wear the ring on my left hand, but when I play my guitar I switch it to my right because it's bulky enough to interfere with fretting the instrument. When I play Oura registers a heartbeat that is ridiculously too high--apparently the constant relatively rapid motions of picking and strumming confuse the algorithm, even when I tell it through the app I'm playing a musical instrument.

Last year I noticed some very big differences in sleep while I was at the hideout compared to while I was at home in Illinois. Scores were much lower at the hideout. Since the data set is only for one annual cycle I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I'll be paying attention as this year plays out. Obviously being in a new environment could be a little disruptive, but you'd think that would settle out after a short time.

HRV (during sleep) is sort of a mystery to me in the sense that I really don't feel a trend in either direction--it doesn't correlate well to my lifestyle activities nor does it seem to be predictive of how I feel or perform. I have high HRV and low HRV periods. Maybe when I get some time I'll go back and pick at that one some more. Oura has a cloud where I can plot one metric versus another and it will calculate a correlation. It does appear to be somewhat inversely related to my sleep score.

*I got the 83% figure from Oura's website, fwiw.

[IlliniDave]

Do you snore? My thoughts are that even a mild form of sleep apnea would cause interruptions and less REM sleep.

I'm sure you've tried sleeping in different positions. There is another easy option that could be worth pursuing. I snore occasionally and decided to try using a mouthguard (SnoreRX in particular) to see if it improved my sleep at all. I found it too uncomfortable so I ended up returning it after 30 days, but it is very highly reviewed and apparently has worked for others.

Hi theanimal,

I do snore occasionally, but now that I've got my weight down to a more favorable level, eat a decently anti-inflammatory diet, and have essentially quit drinking alcohol it's much less frequent. Oura measures SPO2 during sleep, and my SPO2 variation score is normally good and optimal the rest of the time. That's not sufficient for a diagnosis one way or the other regarding apnea, but enough that I don't consider it a major driver. In a given night I spend time in all three basic positions: side, stomach, and back, probably mostly stomach, but I don't really know how to track them over time through a night to try to line them up with sleep data or occasional minor SPO2 variations when Oura logs them. I have considered various devices/methods to curb snoring and enforce nasal breathing while asleep, but haven't tried one yet. Maybe I'll check out SnoreRx as gradually I'm running out of knobs to turn. Thanks.

[IlliniDave]

Some Qualitative (and Weakly Number-Backed) Health-Related Observations

I've wound up using this journal as my health journey log, so apologies to anyone in great health who happens by here.

The thing that got me here today goes back to where I started my efforts trying to restore/improve metabolic health. As we're getting to the end of winter something that I've gradually become aware of is that when I'm relatively inactive for a time, I don't feel chilly the way I used to relatively routinely, and that despite not layering up as much as I traditionally do. If anything this past winter here has been a little colder than last year (though no extreme -20F/-30F stuff). And it's very noticeable in my hands and feet as well. Can't prove it but I believe my lil' mitochondria are cranking out more energy as heat. Historically a "normal" temperature for me with an everyday oral thermometer was about 97.7F. It's now around 98.3-98.4F. IN my blood work I still appear to be just a step ahead of hypothyroidism.

During 3 of the last 5 nights I've had my first REM cycle right at 90 minutes after falling asleep. Limited sample size, but I'm starting to let myself believe my brain isn't all that broken, just that I still have some work to do cultivating better sleep. One of the things I've been doing is to try and get my heart rate as low as I can in the 30 minutes before I get in bed. I've made a little headway there.

An interesting observation is that I've been very deliberate about doing some deep breathing right after lights out. Nothing fancy like the 4-7-8 breathing technique or anything, just slow very deep breath in and slow breath out over about 10-15 seconds. That little change has correlated in time with a jump up in my overnight SpO2 which has been 98% several consecutive nights now. To put it in context, 98% would be an outlier on the high side that I probably would only see once every month or two. Usually I'm 97% slightly over half the time and 96% the rest, especially during times when allergies are acting up. It's Oura data so I don't make much of the absolute numbers, but I think the trend is valid. No real improvement in my resting heart rate though, which is what I was hoping it would improve.

It does seem like if one is willing to depart from Medicine 2.0 and its conventional wisdom that early stages of neurodegeneration/dementia are stoppable if not reversible. By "early" I mean before even the Medicine 2.0 indications that would get labeled "early stage" appear. I don't have the details in hand but there are apparently some blood tests and maybe scans that can be done to get positive indications. I may or may not pursue those. I'm already doing a good bit of the Medicine 3.0 prescription, which is largely centered on metabolic repair and preventing insulin resistance from getting entrenched on the far side of the BBB. There are some subtleties in the way to combat it as a function of it's root cause (seems like there's about a half dozen potential causes). I've still got a good bit of digging to do. But even if I got some medical test-driven indication that the process has started, I don't know how I would from there drive down to the specific root cause because there aren't many practitioners out there who are up to the state of the art in this realm.

Well, that's probably enough for this time.

[IlliniDave]

March 2025 Check-in

Nothing worth detailing financially. All is well, could be better, could be worse.

We're entering a new phase with my dad. His IHHC provider unexpectedly lost her home (rented apartment) and long story short she and her son will imminently be moving into my dad's house with him. There's a family connection, her nephew is my dad's great-grandson, so it's not entirely as odd as it seems. The obvious advantage is that once that happens he will have people around a larger fraction of the time, especially during my season at the hideout. She and my sister (who manages Dad's finances) have worked something out that everyone seems happy with and I neither know all the details nor do I care all that much. My rough understanding is that she'll pay a small rent, buy groceries for the house, and cover some fraction of the bills. She'll bill for the same number of hours she has been and will keep her current client schedule, but won't bill more for the incidental stuff that would be ongoing as a "roommate". She's also agreed to take on some modest renovation projects (painting and such) in the upstairs bedrooms she and her son will be occupying. This was initially my Dad's idea--he made the offer that she could stay there while she and my sister were both over there. They followed up on the idea and within a week it was essentially a done deal. The local rental market is not good for people who can't afford high-end places. I have mixed feelings about it--mostly good with the minor regret that I can't really walk around there like I own the place any more, which amounts to just a small perturbation to the way things have been. The peace of mind swamps that. My other sister has been giving some passive-aggressive pushback--now that the upstairs is going to be cleaned out and rehabilitated (through no effort on her part), she feels like she has a claim to it as her fallback plan. She's one of those people that habitually makes everything about her.

I'm still busy trying to biohack my sleep. So far I've had some small success in trying to improve my REM sleep. I'm now getting that initial REM cycle at 90 minutes after falling asleep more than half the time over the last few weeks. The difficulty in assessing it is that my sleep quality seems to be cyclic with around a 6-8 month periodicity. Overall my sleep metrics have declined somewhat in March compared to February, but are generally above my 2024 yearly average.

I've self-diagnosed that my problem has nothing to do with falling asleep--I'm consistently very good about that. What seems to get me off track is waking up during the night and often having some difficulty getting back to sleep. The potential cause that I am currently exploring is waking up with my sympathetic nervous system activated more than it should be. Sleep is the domain of the parasympathetic nervous system. I don't have much insight into why I might be waking up in the middle of the night in a moderately stressed state. Oura doesn't give any insight to that.

I bought a wearable device under a thirty day free trial that's designed to use subtle vibration to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. It was designed by a researcher/clinician who treats people with various anxiety disorders and PTSD. It claims efficacy based on a number of trials, including random placebo-controlled human crossover studies. It turns out, even though the early research was not focused on sleep, in the initial studies it made measurable differences in subjects' sleep parameters including increased HRV, REM sleep, deep sleep, and total sleep. Anecdotal reports from participants who happened to wear sleep trackers led to further studies which produced clinical backing. Since sleep has become a major focus for me I opted to give it a try. The skeptical part of me thinks maybe I'm now in possession of a bottle of snake oil. If it passes muster and I decide to keep it I'll be out $282 or something like that, and if not I just wasted some time over a 30-day period.

The device also integrates with Oura to form a "stay alseep" mode which attempts to detect when waking is imminent and employ its vibration magic to reactivate the parasympathetic nervous system. I got it Saturday and have a few observations. First, when running it manually in "calm" mode during the daytime my sitting-around heart rate almost immediately drops 2-3 bpm or more, which is more effective/reliable than things I've tried like breathing exercises or casual meditation. I've worn it the last three nights. I got "good" sleep scores all three nights, generally everything fell in the below average part of my recent normal range. But my HRV over the last three nights has increased notably. The average of my average nightly HRV was 63 ms in 2024 and 62 ms YTD 2025, both of which are on the high side of the range for my age cohort in the references I could find. I've averaged 81 ms for the last 3 nights, which would be pretty good for someone in the 18-25 cohort.

But it's too soon to tell as I do have the occasional outlier clusters of days with higher HRVs. The integrated stay asleep mode is supposed to take about a week to become fully functional, and 21 days to fine tune for full efficacy. Time will tell.

I've also experimentally added saffron to my little sleep promoting supplement stack which recently demonstrated some efficacy for improved sleep in human trials. They haven't completely identified the mechanistic reason, but the theory is that it binds to certain receptors in the brain more effectively than magnesium. The receptors in question, when unoccupied, are open to be occupied by other molecules that trigger activation of the sympathetic nervous system. I forget the specifics but in the 6 nights I've been taking it I've averaged about 25% more REM than my 2025 average to date. And I'm batting 86% with my REM at 90 minutes metric. Encouraging, but that's a very small sample size. And 3 of the nights have overlapped with the wearable vibration device.

March numbers compared to February saw a 1-minute increase in average REM, identical deep sleep average, a 31-minute decrease in average total sleep (6h32m per day), and a 1-point decrement in sleep score. There are still 6 more nights to go, so the numbers will change a little before the end of the month, but not meaningfully.

Trying to "fix" my sleep has been a frustrating endeavor. As Q1 2025 comes to a close I'll probably be able to identify some incremental improvements over Q1 2024, but it won't approach what I'd hoped for. I'm going to invest some time in putting together a spreadsheet that tracks a broader range of potential inputs to see if I can tease anything out that would help me hack more effectively. Aside from not being able to achieve numbers that are conventionally stated as characteristic of optimal sleep, I don't have any specific complaints I attribute to sleep, like feeling unrested or unable to focus. But my gut feel is that I'm leaving a lot on the table in my overall wellness journey due to sleep that by most measures is barely adequate, or even arguably inadequate in some ways.

My shoulder is progressing. I'm now back to doing all the heavy band movements that I was prior except for the overhead press. It's still not 100% but the intensity and frequency of the discomfort is noticeably reduced.

[Scott 2]

Interesting to read about your sleep experiments. I wonder if you'll find a strong answer about what recovers that first REM cycle.


My sleep hygiene got bad over the past few months, so I recently made it a priority. I've been wearing my Garmin Forerunner 55 to bed. The tracking is not good. I might be better off with a notebook.

But it gets me to prioritize basic behavioral considerations. When did I go to sleep and get up? Is it consistent? How long did I sleep? Any waking in the night? The metrics are motivating to me.

I've been casually shopping a replacement. It seems any wearable with decent tracking is in the $300-400 range. I think for anyone in the Apple ecosystem, the apple watch is a clear standout. I'm leaning towards a Garmin Venu 3, with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 as a near second. Garmin could drop a new iteration of the watch soon though, hence the casual waiting.

All that to say - the Oura ring keeps standing out against all these watches, for someone most concerned with sleep. Coming back to my earlier question, I haven't found a better consumer targeted sleep device. I don't want two wearables, but it is very appealing.


Recovering from sleep disruptions is something I can struggle with. I benefit from a few things:

1. Cognitive shuffling. I played with progressive relaxation, structured breathing, meditation, etc. This works best for me: https://neurolaunch.com/cognitive-shuffling-sleep/

2. Sensory blockers - Loop quiet ear plugs, Nodpod eye mask. I like to save these as possible add ons, rather than defaulting to them. It gives me a "rescue" option. I tried many options before settling on these.

3. Weighted blanket, made from thick yarn, rather than glass beads. This is more of a help in feeling asleep.


Good news on the changes with your Dad. My biggest precaution, would be around burning out the helper. Probably worth watching for. She might be reluctant to ask when more support is needed. Living with someone who needs care can really confuse one's limits.

[7Wannabe5]

I have experimented with focused relaxation to make my second blood pressure reading or heart rate reading lower than my first and have found it quite effective. This is actually very similar to the exercise/practice I sometimes employ to relax into my feminine energy in a dating situation or in relationship to the universe. The tricky thing is that even though you might have a narrow metric associated goal (lower blood pressure reading) attached, you have to put yourself into the space which is the opposite of striving for any narrow result. You have to open very belly bowl level "Jesus, take the wheel."

Unfortunately, early wake up insomnia is one of the primary symptoms of physiological depression. IME, the best way to combat is with extreme Ben Franklin early-to-bed/early-to-rise routine, lots of coffee in the morning and no coffee after 3 pm. Exercise is also obviously helpful, but I've never been able to work out whether Am or Pm or Am and Pm with or without possibility of brief afternoon nap works best. An extreme measure that may force re-set is actually to get yourself drunk and stay up all night and through the next day until your appropriate bedtime. I'm not sure if the alcohol is strictly needed for this cure; it might work for me simply because I rarely drink or stay up all night, so I've noticed the odd happenstance correlation.

Sounds like a very good deal your sister worked out with the caregiver. Unfortunately, I would be very unlikely to swing such a deal in my mother's situation, because apartment layout does not provide enough of a caregiver living zone for anybody but a minimalist close-relative like me. I am pretty surprised by the fact that my mother does not seem to be driving me nutzo yet. Our only minor conflict has been that I have had to tell her that I am unwilling to humor her overly intrusive obsession with my youngest sister's recent marital break-up, and also a few issues around her unfortunate tendencies towards being simultaneously quite messy and an irrational germaphobe. For example, using waaaay more dishes than necessary through the course of the day, but also repeatedly pushing the button to run the same load of dishes through the dishwasher 5X, because "might be some germy residue still stuck on a glass." This is also why we took away almost all of her dishes and substituted paper plates when she was living by herself.