Early Retirement Extreme Forums

IlliniDave wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 6:32 am

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.

Maybe embrace it. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2022 ... asic-sleep

Is there a heart rate increase? Sleep apnea would do that. I don't know enough about all the gadgets you use for measurement and whether they would explicitly catch this as sleep apnea, but if it were happening to me, it'd be either apnea or me getting too warm during sleep. I'm like this when I overheat. But then you're very health-conscious and disciplined about it so it's possible you've already outruled both of these, in which case, pls disregard this

Scott 2 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 10:48 am

Hi Scott,

Yeah, Oura was designed as a sleep tracker originally, then added on fitness tracking features over time, and frankly isn't very good at fitness tracking. My main complaint is that while it will track some data during activity, you can't see the data until after you complete the activity, so you get no realtime feedback. If you didn't see it, I linked a study a few posts above that compares the sleep tracking of three devices, Oura, one by Apple, and I think a Garmin one. My read was that there wasn't a ton of difference between the three. Oura just released a Gen 4 ring, with some improvements in the little instrument suite--some things that were measured using a single wavelength now get measured with multiple wavelengths. I will probably have to get one before long because a side effect of the heavier strength training, and maybe more time with the guitar, is that my fingers are thicker now, and if I have even a small amount of fluid retention the ring gets painfully tight.

I have a bunch of ear plugs and tried them for a while last spring. They didn't seem to do much but maybe it's worth bringing them back into the mix. An eye mask is something I haven't tried yet and might be worth a shot. Especially up at the hideout where around midsummer twilight extends to around 10 PM and begins again around 3AM.

One thing that I believe is helpful but can't provide any numerical backing for is I use special lightbulbs that have a combination of infrared and near infrared spectrum light (to mimic twilight) in the evening, and have all my screens set to turn the blue spectrum way down between sunset and sunrise.

One of my next steps I decided is to do a better job of putting screens away a little earlier in the evening, despite the color spectrum adjustments.

I think you mentioned a weighted blanket before (or someone did). That's something I meant to look into and try out but I never did. That's back on my list.

I bookmarked the cognitive shuffling reference for later today--thank you.

Consider creating a month-to-month lease and caregiver agreement. I saw a situation like this get very complicated. It may be a good idea to spell things out before hand.

The non-profit Nolo can generate a good caregiver agreement for a fee and they have a few pages on their site about how to handle live-in homesharing. You could probably use AI to generate one for free as well.

https://store.nolo.com/products/elder-c ... ement.html
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia ... 30159.html

I am enjoying your sleep musings and look forward to hear how the machine works out. My sleep tracking is a mess. One piece of strange data.... my HRV fluctuates drastically from place to place as we move. We were in our last place for ten day and the previous for ten as well. The last place was super comfortable but had a musty/moldy smell and my HRV fell gradually a few points each day from 92 at check-in to 66 at checkout. The previous place was super comfortable and I felt like I slept like a baby, but my sleep tracker said I was tossing and turning. My HRV hovered in the 90s the entire time. I can't make heads or tails of it.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 11:22 am

I've been frequently saying I rarely have any difficulty getting to sleep, and wouldn't you know it, last night was one of those rare nights I did. I'm pretty rigid in my sleep routine. I have a couple of hours of wind down time starting around 630 PM. That does include screen time, but generally only passive--watching a movie or occasionally a "lite" podcast of some sort. Then in bed at 8:30, read for 30-60 minutes, just popular fiction, then lights out. I try to be up at 0500, but usually it's between 0400-0430 when I determine I'm not going to sleep anymore and get out of bed.

That's interesting about a link with depression. It's the last thing I would self-diagnose simply because I wake up everyday looking forward to what it might bring. But who knows, I'm to the point I'll consider any possibility.

I have a certain amount of Whitecoat hypertension (maybe "had" is more accurate) but once I learned how to use nutrition to hack my metabolism and clear some insulin resistance my BP has gone from mildly hypertensive to pretty darn good for an old dude, and readings in the doctor's office thee last 2 annual visits have been in line with my at-home numbers. That reminds me I haven't been checking on that much lately so I should probably get my cuff out and see how I'm doing. Anyway, I had at best mixed and unreliable results trying to use any sort of meditation/breathing exercises to lower either heart rate of BP. For a while I was taking three measurements at 1-2 minute intervals an averaging them, and it was a crap shoot which would be the highest and which the lowest. You're probably right that when I try to such things for a reason, the existence of the reason probably defeats the effort. But I experimented again last night with the new wearable. With it off I tried my normal deep breathing and my heart rate stayed in the 64-66 range. Turned it on in a wind down mode and withing a few minutes it was down to 59-62, with the same "reason" hanging over my head.

I'm not sure how permanent the arrangement will be with my Dad. She's been with him 3-4 half days a week for almost 2 years now, so she's used to my dad's quirks (of which there are plenty). The whole situation has been a windfall.

suomalainen wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:29 pm

Maybe embrace it. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2022 ... asic-sleep

Thanks suo--I'll take a look at that later. I had encountered the idea somewhere in the past--that humans in high latitudes without much access to artificial lighting would generally go to sleep at dark (which in the winter starts in the late afternoon), wake up around midnight, for a few hours, then sleep again until daylight. But I don't remember where I ran across it.

ertyu wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 26, 2025 6:07 am

Is there a heart rate increase? ...

Yes, when I wake up in the middle of the night (by which I mean around 0300) for more than just a minute or two, my HR will increase. But since an increase in HR is part of the waking up process, I'm not sure how to tease out which is casual. And my heart rate tends to have a fair amount of variation through the night even while I'm sound asleep for an extended block of time. My "resting heart rate", which is Oura speak for the lowest average heart rate it measures through the night, is higher than it was at this time last year. The day I started using considerably heavier resistance in my strength training regimen is the day that shift occurred, and when I took a month off over the holidays it crept back down. I don't know if there's any significance to that.

Oura does measure SpO2 during the night, but the data it provides is not particularly detailed. It gives an average SpO2 % for the entire night, along with a qualitative "breathing regularity" score and a timeline using little ticks to show at what time and how pronounced/frequent the changes were. But I have no idea what the thresholds are, what directions the variations go. My breathing regularity is always "good" or "optimal". The ticks shown when it is only good (optimal means no significant variations detected) are of three grades, "few", "occasional", and "frequent". When I have some variations there was only one time I recall seeing a "frequent" which was while I had covid and my sinuses/nostrils were plugged. Other wise I've only seen "few"s. But I don't examine every day's data. Last night I woke up twice that I remember, 3 times per Oura, once for about 45 minutes (at~ 0300, my witching hour I guess) but had optimal breathing regularity meaning my SpO2 was relatively steady all night. The Oura App is very careful not to say anything that could be construed as a diagnosis, but the implication is that I had no breathing disturbances at all. When I do have a few "few"-level SpO2 variations, they seem completely uncorrelated with waking up during the night. Apnea is always a possibility I suppose, but it's not high on my list to track down at this time.

Getting too warm is definitely a possibility (though I don't wake up feeling like I'm too warm). I use a memory foam mattress which is extremely comfortable, but they do tend to hold heat. I might opt to try one of those fancy thermally regulated mattresses. Up at the hideout I have a very spartan mattress, and my sleep was decidedly worse there last year than back here. So heat retaining foam isn't the issue, but it's also the warmest period of the year and I have no A/C. Nights where the overnight low is above 70 are pretty rare. But without A/C I don't have much control over humidity.

Ego wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 26, 2025 7:24 am

Consider creating a month-to-month lease and caregiver agreement. I saw a situation like this get very complicated. It may be a good idea to spell things out before hand.


I am enjoying your sleep musings and look forward to hear how the machine works out. My sleep tracking is a mess. One piece of strange data.... my HRV fluctuates drastically from place to place as we move. We were in our last place for ten day and the previous for ten as well. The last place was super comfortable but had a musty/moldy smell and my HRV fell gradually a few points each day from 92 at check-in to 66 at checkout. The previous place was super comfortable and I felt like I slept like a baby, but my sleep tracker said I was tossing and turning. My HRV hovered in the 90s the entire time. I can't make heads or tails of it.

We have one in place that my sister drew up using a template from an online service she uses for her husband's business. It delineates the rent, ongoing cost sharing, and that her official caregiver hours are the same as what they were prior (she has a number of other clients she provides for). It's not like she will be having to look after him around the clock (for now, knock on wood). We're counting on her decency as a person (who also has a family connection) to respond to something like a fall or urgent medical condition during her "off" hours.

You mentioned that before about your HRV. I haven't seen that going back/forth to the hideout, but I'll be keeping a sharper eye on it this year. My period with lowest HRV (monthly average) was Mar-May last year. What strange is during that period my other sleep-related metrics were at a peak. Mine can very widely night-to-night even when everything stays the same. This recent stretch is the first time I've really paid much attention to it. Maybe I can tease out some correlations. My HRV only rarely reaches the 90s (Oura gives me an average through the entire period it detects sleep), but it also gives a peak value and a little graph. My peaks are typically up around 150 ms or higher, but I think the average is the more meaningful measure. My long-term averages are much lower than yours--in the low 60s.

IlliniDave wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 26, 2025 6:51 am

I have a bunch of ear plugs and tried them for a while last spring. They didn't seem to do much but maybe it's worth bringing them back into the mix. An eye mask is something I haven't tried yet and might be worth a shot.

The loop earplugs specifically clicked for me. Since they're silicone, I can slip them in like a headphone. I can do it in the dark, with my brain only minimally turning on. Nothing sticks out of the ear, so I can side sleep.

It's different than a plug that has to be rolled and inserted.

Similar with the nodpod. I just grab it and drape it over my face. It only takes a second. The weight adds additional sensory settling.

In both cases, I think it's the act of turning down sensory input that facilities sleep, rather than the absolute noise or light levels. That's why I prefer then as rescue options, unless in a hotel or something else disruptive.

These two tools have given me the most sleep back. Well, almost....


Air conditioning in Summer would be #1. From what I understand, sleeping cool and dry is a big differentiater. I keep meaning to get a bed system, but taking my whole house to a steady 72 overnight doesn't cost much.


Funny trying to make it better can make it worse in the short term. Sleep anxiety can be very annoying.

Scott 2 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 26, 2025 10:04 am

The loop earplugs specifically clicked for me. ...

Funny trying to make it better can make it worse in the short term. Sleep anxiety can be very annoying.

I'll have to look into those loop earplugs. The ones I'd tried were the rolled/inserted/wait for them to expand type. I was never happy with the fit of efficacy of them. Neither of my two main sleeping environments contain much in the way of noise polution though there's a little here in Illinois from traffic on a main road about 150 yards away. Up at the hideout the nights are surprisingly noisy. That's the time of year where I'm apt to sleep with open windows and the extended twilight periods are filled with birdsongs, and frequently the wind in the trees is quite noticeable. I'd always had a bias towards thinking those sounds were apt to be soothing, but maybe muting some sensory input once I've woken up in the wee hours could help with getting back to sleep.

I would agree on A/C too. Part of falling asleep entails lowering your core body temperature by something on the order of 3*F. I've seen claims that ideal room ambient temperatures for human sleep are in the 65-67*F range, presumably to facilitate that core temperature drop. A lowish humidity environment would presumably facilitate that too. I spend the warm part of the year without AC. The cost of adding AC is higher than the cost of a fancy temperature regulating mattress topper but considerably lower than a "climate-controlled" mattress. And the elephant in the room with that line of thought is I haven't seen a clear pattern of better sleep in the dead of winter when my bedroom temperature is 64-66*F very consistently. If anything, it seems like at least in 2024, late paring and late fall were the peak sleeping seasons. In 2025 I had a late winter peak and seem to be declining heading into the heart of spring. It's a challenging thing to try to get a handle on.

Yep. One thing I notice now is that when I wake up at 0300 my thoughts very quickly turn to wondering if I'll be able to get back to sleep or will this be another night of sub 6h30m sleep.Once I start thinking like that, I might as well just get up.

IlliniDave wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 27, 2025 6:51 am

Yep. One thing I notice now is that when I wake up at 0300 my thoughts very quickly turn to wondering if I'll be able to get back to sleep or will this be another night of sub 6h30m sleep.Once I start thinking like that, I might as well just get up.

I was going to suggest that this strong focus on sleep (and other health indicators like e.g. blood pressure, immune function, ...) could be counterproductive to health due to the amount of stress/anxiety it potentially induces. Even if it is not felt directly as stress, the effects might still be there in the form of insomnia, effects on the gut, etc.

The other effect is that altering behavior just to get "good numbers". This breaks insofar the numbers don't capture the entire system. Surely there's more to good sleep than optimizing a few metrics from an Oura ring. Also see Goodhart's law. For example, I used to have a fitbit that also measured sleep. It didn't take me long to figure out that I got better numbers if I changed how I turned over in bed. Did I sleep any better from that? No, but the fitbit thought so.

Sorry Dave, I haven't read through everything in your journal, but have you tried biphasic or polyphasic sleep? Maybe your body is just clinging to older human sleep patterns? [Rabbit hole -- there is speculation that people who follow non-western or keto/paleo diets have different sleep patterns and needs. Evidence is anecdotal at best IMO but interesting. Our current sleep patterns in the west are fairly recent developments. Not sure what diet you're following but IIRC you were following a low carb type diet at one point. Maybe your sleep needs have changed? I thrive on polyphasic but have dropped back to biphasic to please my family. You live alone though so could really experiment with your cycle.]

jacob wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 27, 2025 7:02 am

I was going to suggest that this strong focus on sleep (and other health indicators like e.g. blood pressure, immune function, ...) could be counterproductive to health due to the amount of stress/anxiety it potentially induces. Even if it is not felt directly as stress, the effects might still be there in the form of insomnia, effects on the gut, etc.

The other effect is that altering behavior just to get "good numbers". This breaks insofar the numbers don't capture the entire system. Surely there's more to good sleep than optimizing a few metrics from an Oura ring. Also see Goodhart's law. For example, I used to have a fitbit that also measured sleep. It didn't take me long to figure out that I got better numbers if I changed how I turned over in bed. Did I sleep any better from that? No, but the fitbit thought so.

Yeah, it can be a slippery slope. Place humans in any system and at least some of them will try to game it. I like to think my ultimate ambition is to truly improve/maintain my health. The analogy I use to keep some perspective is that I'm a student and I want to learn as much as I can from the class rather than just get an A, so skipping all the studying and cheating on the exam is not really a means to the end. Extend that to something like my quest to increase strength and muscle mass, anabolic steroids would allow me to bulk up with muscle mass more effectively than what I'm doing, but they would work against the next higher tier goal that spawned the desire to improve or at least maintain strength. An example of your point that good numbers at one node in the complex system don't tell the whole story.

One of the issues that I have to contend with is that I've had a pretty good amount of success with a number of biomarkers: you mentioned blood pressure and that's one. I've basically reversed IR/"prediabetes", eliminated a good chunk of visceral fat, and stabilized liver enzymes, etc. Through that I've probably developed an amount of hubris, believing that with the right information and willingness to change behaviors I can "fix" anything, which obviously isn't the case when extrapolating too fasr into the future.

Sleep is a difficult one since it's a biological function that is less well understood than many.

If I had access to no data, I would note that falling asleep is generally easy, and I always wake up feeling rested and ready to go both physically and mentally. No grogginess, or "brain fog", or any significant paucity of physical energy. So in those senses sleep is doing it's job. On the negative side of the ledger I'm a restless sleeper often prone to waking during the night. As long as those wake ups occur within the first 5-6 hours, probably 90% of the time I get back to sleep no problem. If they occur 6-7 hours in, it's roughly a coin toss whether I can get back to sleep. Beyond 7 hrs, forget about it, I'm up for the day.

Probing below the surface, there are three criteria consistently listed as requirements for good sleep:

1. 7-9 hours total sleep per 24 hours
2. Minimum of 15%-25% (depending on the source) deep sleep
3. Minimum of 20%-25% (depending on the source) REM sleep.

I don't achieve any of those on a regular basis, although usually I am pretty close to the 15%-20% deep sleep range, which per some sources is adequate. Since deep and REM sleep happen while I'm asleep I don't know how I could game them. There may be some way to game the total sleep estimation. Occasionally when I'm deeply relaxed Oura will ask me to confirm I've had a nap when I hadn't, but I've not noticed anything that will reliably "trick" the ring (haven't really looked).

Assuming I can find the right combination of behavior/lifestyle modifications to come closer to or even achieve those criteria, especially the REM/deep sleep thresholds, would it be fools gold? Would it do nothing meaningful for my well being, mentally of physically? I don't know.

Could Oura be underestimating either REM or deep sleep. Maybe. But it could just as easily be overestimating them.

There's an irrational component to all this that's rooted in spending parts of nearly every day 8 months out of the year watching my dad succumb to dementia. It's generally taken for granted that Alzheimer's and the like goes hand-in-hand with shitty sleep, but I don't think it's known with a high degree of certainty which one might be causal. I got this renewed focus on sleep, especially REM, from a study that suggested delays in the first REM cycle are indicative of early stage Alzheimer's. I don't think that's cast in stone yet, probably more examination needs to be done, but it's a topic I'm highly sensitive to. It looks like with the small tweaks I've made to my routine I'll finish March having the "normal" first REM cycle timing 75%-80% of the time, compared to < 50% prior, I'm much less concerned I'm presenting early indications of dementia. But my nature is that once I start pulling on a thread I'll keep at it until I've exhausted what I can do/learn in the short run.

That's not meant to be argumentative in relation to what you said, mostly it's just giving myself an exhortation to keep things in perspective, and to try to view things from a slightly different vantage.

jennypenny wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 27, 2025 8:21 am

Sorry Dave, I haven't read through everything in your journal, but have you tried biphasic or polyphasic sleep? Maybe your body is just clinging to older human sleep patterns? [Rabbit hole -- there is speculation that people who follow non-western or keto/paleo diets have different sleep patterns and needs. Evidence is anecdotal at best IMO but interesting. Our current sleep patterns in the west are fairly recent developments. Not sure what diet you're following but IIRC you were following a low carb type diet at one point. Maybe your sleep needs have changed? I thrive on polyphasic but have dropped back to biphasic to please my family. You live alone though so could really experiment with your cycle.]

Hiya jp!

Suo recently mentioned something along those lines. It's certainly something I'm beginning to think about more. I'm arguably quasi biphasic in the sense I relatively frequently have short naps around midday. Typically 30 +/- 10 min. I'd actually decided to make a concerted effort to avoid them for the month of April to see how that effects my overnight sleep. Especially now that I'm not in an office environment 5-6 days per week I tend to sleep when I'm tired, and not sleep when I'm not. The "power naps" don't help with REM because the first REM period in a cycle usually comes after being asleep for about 90 minutes. I don't notice any difference in my nighttime sleep on nap days versus non-nap days. But I'm thinking it might take some period of days without napping to let my body factor in the change.

I come from a line of nappers on the maternal branch of my family, and they are short sleepers as well. Both my sisters have similar sleep characteristics to me. I'm not sure about my brother. So maybe I'm just genetically predispositioned to sleep the way I do, and maybe I fit into some tiny slice of the population who can remain perfectly healthy with less than the conventional sleep recommendations. I sleep alone but don't live alone except for the summer months I spend up at the hideout. That might be an opportunity to experiment with trying two roughly equal sleep periods each day. It's a good suggestion.

It's been a long time since I started this and the noggin isn't working great these days, but from what I remember ... at first, try napping every time you feel the need to reach for a snack or coffee -- it's a signal that you're powering down and it'll help you figure out which naps make you feel your best. Between sleeps you have to keep moving. Right now I do a biphasic cycle with two longer sleeps during the night and a short nap midday. I go to bed early, get up between 1 & 2 am* and do things like housekeeping or stargazing (outside) and see my son off at 3:30am (he's a baker), then I go back to bed. The trick is to get out of bed when you wake up during the night and go back to sleep before the sun starts to come up.** Lying there waiting to fall back asleep is not helpful. (see bears pacing in their dens during hybernation) Get up, play guitar, do some laundry, take a walk, etc., then try to go back to sleep. I like polyphasic better and it helps to moderate eating, but biphasic works too and is less disruptive to your social life.

* easy for us old folks lol

** this means you'll get less sleep at night during the summer but that's normal too because you'll take a longer nap during the heat of the day (sleep seasonally)

Last note: Apparently we used to sleep sitting up or at least propped up. I went to a lot of trouble to learn how to sleep flat without a pillow but it turns out that sleep is easier propped up. Not on a pillow but in a recliner position. I didn't realize that sleeping prone only hit the masses during modernity. So much to undo ...

I encountered the video interview below with a female doctor who is an expert on hormones and precision medicine yesterday. She touches on some of the issues you seem to be experiencing. You might find it interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQozcTPyO0

My sleep habits are very similar to yours, roughly 9-5 with light fiction reading at bedtime, and one short period of wakefulness around 2 am. I usually sleep alone, but not always, and the presence of a partner does not seem to disrupt my pattern beyond details such as I'll fall asleep watching the first 20 minutes of a movie together rather than reading, and maybe have short run of sex or shared snack at 2 am. I much too frequently choose to have a half-awake solo snack at 2 am. My mother will sometimes attempt to start a conversation with me at 2 am, but I nip that in the bud, because more likely to render me wide awake than sex or a snack or a brief resumption of very light reading. I read on dark-screen kindle like device or using book night light. A brighter light would keep or render me more fully awake.

jennypenny wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 28, 2025 7:43 am

It's been a long time since I started this and the noggin isn't working great these days, but from what I remember ... at first, try napping every time you feel the need to reach for a snack or coffee -- it's a signal that you're powering down and it'll help you figure out which naps make you feel your best.

Interesting! When I can, I take a nap after eating the big meal of the day. I set a clock but don't need to, so far I wake up after half to one and half our.

You do kind of the reverse, take a nap when you feel hunger (or our modern equivalent, the need to snack). Thanks for sharing, I'm going to experiment with that.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 28, 2025 10:44 am

I encountered the video interview below with a female doctor who is an expert on hormones and precision medicine yesterday. She touches on some of the issues you seem to be experiencing. You might find it interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQozcTPyO0

..

2 hrs is a big block of time to set aside. I skipped around through some of the little sections in the first third of it and it's all in line with the thrust of the information I've been consuming for the last two years. I've been on the trail of cortisol for a while now, simply because when I look at the biomarkers I have measured that I would like to be a little stronger, a common thread is that stress is a potential disruptor. However, the one time I've had my cortisol level measured (last April in the main battery of annual tests I get through Function Health) it was very low, even within the "ideal" range they identify, which is much lower and narrower than the stated "reference range" from the lab/Medicine 2.0. The catch there is that it's my understanding to get a true reflection of cortisol it would need to be measured multiple times per day each day for about a week. The wearable I'm trying out is essentially a vagal nerve stimulator which is supposed to be both an alternate and complement to other stress reduction techniques. Jury's still out on that. Early indication is that it has a noticeable positive effect on my HRV (i.e., increases it), and HRV is generally inversely proportional to stress levels. I haven't been able to tease out any changes in other sleep-related parameters yet.

I did notice she mentioned a few supplements that help with stress in some of her her athlete patients. I'm obviously not an athlete, nor in the same age cohort, but I might look into them (of course, I'll give any supplement a spin, lol). I seem to be doing a pretty good job with the lifestyle hacks she mentions.

I didn't get to anything about sleep in it yet. I bookmarked it for later.

It does sound like there are some overarching similarities in our sleep patterns. I like to go lights out at 8:30 and on average I'm asleep in Oura's opinion 12 minutes later. One peculiarity I've noticed is I often have a brief waking period around 10PM which coincidentally right around the time I should be hitting that first REM cycle. I may or may not have other brief waking periods (again per Oura, often enough I don't even remember them). then around 300AM is the time when I'll sometimes have a harder wake up, often because by then I'll have to hit the head. From there it's a tossup whether or not I'll get back to sleep, which when I do would typically be for 60-90 minutes. I do all my nighttime reading under a red led bulb that puts out infrared and near-infrared spectrum light (essentially to trick the the brain into think it's sunset and get my circadian rhythm working for me).

jennypenny wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 28, 2025 7:43 am

It's been a long time since I started this and the noggin isn't working great these days, but from what I remember ... at first, try napping every time you feel the need to reach for a snack or coffee -- it's a signal that you're powering down and it'll help you figure out which naps make you feel your best ...

That'll be a difficult transition for me. I don't experience food or caffeine cravings during the day. I'm pretty well adapted to restricted window intermittent fasting and that has helped me regulate energy throughout the day pretty well. I eat my big meal of the day around noon, and my little naps typically come on the heels of that if I remain inactive afterward. If it's a busy day and I go back to being active immediately afterward I can usually skip them without feeling tired until the evening. (I eat moderate-to-low carb as a rule so don't get pronounced insulin crashes after eating) Last year my experience was that I went from averaging about 6.5 hrs sleep per night in the real world to about 5.25 hours when I went to Minnesota, and things were just generally messed up there sleepwise. So that might provide a window to try to establish a new pattern. A difficulty is that usually a couple times a week I'm out fishing or whatever from ~0700-1700. That precludes a nap but often means I fall asleep early in the evening (3-4 hours before sunset) and my whole rhythm gets out of whack. Anyway, that's just some thinking aloud, I'll have to see what I can work out onve I get there.

My naps occur in a chair with my feet propped up. It's not a proper recliner, but I can see from both a practical sense and from the ease I can sleep in a somewhat reclined position where that might be an evolved natural sleep posture for humans.

How do you time intense workouts, do you work out before or after the noon meal