Transmutable Explorations

Tag: Health

  • Taking My Metabolic Fitness to new ‘Levels’

    Taking My Metabolic Fitness to new ‘Levels’

    My Levels Health Review

    I’m constantly doing more research into how to increase my overall healthspan.  It’s becoming increasingly clear, that ‘metabolic flexibility‘ is key. While many of the great diseases of the western world have genetic components, research is showing that genetic predisposition is greatly enhanced by poor metabolic fitness. I started practicing time restricted feeding and experimenting with supplements in an attempt to optimize my personal metabolic flexibility. Unfortunately, short of tracking time spent fasting and using a ketone based breath analyzer, there wasn’t really a great way to easily measure how well I was doing…. until I was invited to participate in the Levels beta program.  Here’s my Levels Health Review.

    What is Levels?

    The Levels program consists of two main parts: a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), and the Levels software. They also maintain an extensive blog with lots of great information.

    The CGM is a wearable that you painlessly attach to your upper arm. It inserts a filament into the fluid beneath the skin.  Here it will monitor your blood glucose levels for 14 days before you replace it with another unit. Levels uses the Abbott FreeStyle Libre system . You read data from the device using the Abbott supplied mobile app. This is done using the near–field communication (NFC) capabilities of your mobile phone. Just hold your device over the CGM several times a day and your data is synced with the app. You need to allow Levels access to this data in order to really reap the benefits of this program and use Levels’ software.

    The Levels software pulls the raw data that is collected by the Abbott app.  It then presents it in a much nicer format. It also integrates with other fitness apps/wearables. This allows you to see your data on a timeline that incorporates all of the things that you do. The Levels software killer feature though is the Zone comparison capability that allows you to conduct your own experiments. The ability to compare Zones is the basis for a beta feature that allows you to participate in ‘challenges’ by changing a single variable in the Zone.

    Does it work?

    Like most wearables, the value in Levels isn’t really in monitoring absolute values of your data points.  It’s in comparing the relative values specific to you over time. After installing a new CGM, the relative values were accurate for the 2 week lifetime of the device after a few hour adaptation period. At this point, you could consistently see what foods/activities radically raise and lower you blood glucose.

    Monitoring your relative values isn’t really necessary though as Levels makes this easy with the concept of a Metabolic Score. This is your rating for how well you did each day. This is where the real joy of using Levels starts to set in. I found myself constantly experimenting with items from my usual routine to find out what improved the Metabolic Score and what made it worse.

    Initially, I started looking for validation for the things that I was already doing with the expectation of improving my metabolic flexibility. I pretty much got universal confirmation on all of these practices. At least for me, they work at minimizing long blood glucose spikes. Some of these things include: using cinnamon and/or apple cider vinegar or doing some resistance training before meals, taking walks after meals, eating protein before carbs during meals.

    Levels Health Review Surprises!

    While reinforcing my already existing practices, I actually noticed some surprising things that I would have never been aware prior to wearing a CGM (and monitoring my results like a maniac!).

    Sauna

    The first big surprise that I came across was how the sauna impacted my blood glucose levels. For me, some of the biggest and longest lived spikes in blood glucose came while using or immediately after using the sauna. This is something that I haven’t had a chance to really start experimenting with, but is on my to do list for the future.

    Alcohol

    I was also surprised by how alcohol impacted my readings. I expected alcohol consumption to spike my blood glucose.  Surprisingly, most alcohols actually ended up doing the opposite (Notable exception are all of those trendy lactose containing ‘beers’). Levels has a great blog post on what exactly is happening here. After noticing this and then finding and reading that blog post, I’m now super careful about drinking immediately after fasting or while in ketosis and have found that having a drink before eating my largest meal of the day actually has a beneficial impact on my blood glucose levels.

    Discoveries When Correlating Data

    The most impactful thing that I’ve learned so far occurred by making correlations between the data obtained from Levels and the data from my Oura ring. As many regular readers know, I’m always trying to optimize my sleep. I was becoming convinced that nothing I did would resolve my ‘way more frequent than I would like’ nighttime restlessness and wakeups. Honestly, Levels wasn’t helping this because the CGM can only hold 8 hours of data without syncing it, so I found myself waking up earlier than I would want, concerned about syncing my data.

    This obsession about not losing data ultimately paid off when I mapped my Oura ring data, showing wake ups, with my data from Levels. I noticed that just about every major wakeup correlated with a bout of nocturnal hypoglycemia! I could write a whole post on how I went about diagnosing the cause of this issue, but it ultimately came down to me taking the wrong supplements before bed. These supplements, coupled with my time restricted feeding (and especially alcohol), would lead to a dramatic drop in blood glucose mid-night. I switched to taking the offending supplements at a different time of day. This prevented the blood glucose drop and my sleep has improved dramatically!

    Is Levels ‘worth it’?

    Using Levels on an every day basis ends up being a pricy endeavor. You need to purchase a new CGM every 2 weeks and deal with the social implications of wearing a device on your upper arm and scanning it constantly with your cell phone. Identifying the issue that was impacting my sleep (discussed above), made the time I spent testing Levels well worth it. I’ve also thought of several new experiments that I’d like to run, but I haven’t yet purchased additional CGMs. In addition to the cost, I have a few other items that have held me back from continuing using it.

    Software Issues

    One of my biggest issues was with the Levels software. I found that it was near impossible for me to use the challenges feature with the software hooked up to Google Fit. The ‘challenges’ require pretty much a 4 hour period where nothing is occurring outside of the actual ‘challenge’ experiment that you are testing. Something as simple as walking for a few steps that shows up as a workout during this time frame will make it impossible to use the feature. A suggestion that I would have is to allow some leniency here. Allow me to identify sections of the timeline where I know that the only difference is the variable that I am testing.

    Additionally, I would love the ability for Levels to push data into Google Fit rather than only consume data from it. This capability would have made analyzing things like my sleeping issue with my Oura data much easier.

    Social Issues

    Secondly, making it known that you’re a non-diabetic using a CGM results in an unbelievable amount of hate on social media.  Even in real life, you’ll receive hate from people who believe that you are responsible for all the ills of the public health system in the US. I haven’t seen any unbiased data that either support or disprove this claim.  Because of this, I can only offer my own opinion on this subject. I’m happy to share my opinion with anyone who wants to engage in a rational conversation about it. I’m glad to be shown evidence that convinces me otherwise, but I’m not interested in name calling and false accusations. I have some ideas on how this issue can be addressed.  I’m sure that Levels has thought about this as well.  This is likely thwarted by the arcane system we have in place for ‘approval’ of medical devices.

    Device Issues

    Finally, I’m really waiting for a better device.  Some combination of making a ‘CGM’ that doesn’t require me to sync religiously every 8 hours, is less obtrusive, and/or measures additional biomarkers beyond blood glucose will make me pay the current price in a heartbeat!

    Correcting Metabolic Issues

    Even with these drawbacks, I will continue to use Levels a few times a year. I’m interested in seeing how things progress both with their software and with my own Metabolic Fitness.  The adjustments to my habits that I’ve been able to make from being a Levels user have been EXTREMELY valuable. 

    Full Disclosure: I am an investor in Levels.  The software has evolved since this original post and I will be updating my Levels Health Review soon.

  • I’ve Seen the (Red) Light

    I’ve Seen the (Red) Light

    Just about every thought leader that I follow in the Bio-Hacking space is a fan of Red Light Therapy or Photobiomodulation (PBM). Some use it for reducing pain and inflammation or as a post workout recovery technique. Others tout the benefits related to skin health and collagen production. Still others claim it’s a miracle for increasing libido. Based on the research I’ve read, I was always interested in using PBM as a sleep aid. The biggest deterrent for me was that the best PBM devices are NOT inexpensive. Independent analysis of many of the ‘cheap’ models reveal that they bathe your body in EMF as well as (if you’re lucky) the desirable red and near infrared wavelengths of light. Since I go out of my way to avoid EMFs where I can, this wasn’t a viable option.

    Red Light Therapy Devices that I Currently Use

    Over time though I’ve been able to collect some of the best red light therapy devices out there.  Each of the devices I own has their own pros and cons.  They all use different wavelengths in the red/infrared spectrum.  The devices I currently use include:

    Joovv Mini 2.0

    The Joovv Mini is a panel based red light therapy device.  It contains LEDs supporting wavelengths of 660 nm (red) and 850 nm (near-infrared).  You can also toggle each of these off or on to specifically target one or both wavelengths.  I wrote a review of the Joovv Mini and a past study that I participated in.

    Kineon Move+ Pro

    The Kineon Move+ Pro is an innovative form factor red light therapy device.  It consists of chainable modules, each of which contain 650nm red LEDs and 808nm Infrared lasers.  Each module is either all on or all off.  I’ve written a review of my experience with the Kineon Move+ as well.

    Infrared Sauna

    Many people will object to me calling an infrared sauna a red light therapy device, but as I dive into later in this article, there is much overlap.  All of these devices are used synergistically.  I also have a chromotherapy device installed in my sauna which allows me to get some of the same effects that I can from the more traditional red light therapy devices.

    How I Incorporate Red Light Therapy

    Each Red Light Therapy device that I use has a differing form factor.  This makes them particularly useful for specific purposes.  I’ve developed the following protocols for how I use each of them.

    Full Body Recovery

    The number one way that I use some sort of red/infrared light therapy is just as a general full body recovery mechanism.  For this I primarily use the sauna.  I spend at least 20 minutes using this just about every day.  It’s always done post-workout and I try to get a little meditation/breathwork session in at the same time.  Sometimes, I’ll do a mild yoga session or some other form of stretching while getting my sweat on.  The benefits of this practice are many. Subjectively, I just feel great.  I seem to recover from workouts faster and general joint pain just seems to disappear.  I’ve been told my skin looks better.  

    Better Sleep

    Probably the most objective thing on this list (except for maybe a decrease in blood pressure).  Using red light therapy has definitely improved my sleep.  Amount of deep sleep, total sleep and time that it takes me to fall asleep have all moved in positive directions.  This is especially true on days that I spend in the sauna, but I feel that just viewing red light at night seems to have a positive impact.

    Spot Treatment

    Sometimes, even with all the time spent in the sauna, I still get a nagging joint issue.  When I was training pistol squats, my knees were always obliterated.  This is the one area where the Kineon Move+ shines.  The ability to just put it on and go about your every day life is amazing.  This also works great in conjunction with regular sauna use.  More recently, I’ve had a nagging issue with one of my feet around the big toe area.  I started using the Kineon for this, but noticed that the heat in the sauna seemed to make it feel even better.  Because of this, I started using the Joovv under my desk while sitting with the heat setting of the Joovv turned on.

    Better Mood

    I initially got involved with using the Joovv through a study researching Seasonal Affective Disorder.  The outcome of this study was that the assigned protocol of using it every morning was statistically significant in improving mood.  Even though I do many other things in the sauna that could improve my mood, I subjectively agree that both the Joovv and sauna seem to have benefits.

    Skin/Nerve Health

    I already mentioned how great I think the sauna is for skin health.  Before I owned a sauna, I used to meditate in front of the Joovv every day.  When that practice moved into the sauna, I noticed that my skin looked brighter, but not necessarily as taut as before.  I didn’t really pay too much attention to this until I contracted Lyme disease.  My Lyme led to a case of Bell’s palsy which paralyzed the right side of my face.  This was basically due to inflammation in a major nerve.  I would do my physical therapy in the sauna and noticed that the heat definitely made things feel better while doing this.  So I started doing my physical therapy in front of the Joovv panel whenever I wasn’t in the sauna.  Maybe coincidence, but this led to greater gains in my physical therapy than I was achieving before.  I also noticed that my skin was looking taut again.  This led me to start digging around for why this might be.  I discovered that the wavelengths used in the Joovv had been found to stimulate collagen production.  This has now been incorporated back into my regimen.

    Eye Health

    I’ve crossed that threshold where everyone my age needs reading glasses and light to read a restaurant menu.  In an effort to fight this, I came across Gabor Patch exercises and added them to my routine.  While researching this, I also came across studies using red light therapy to stave of macular degeneration.  I now use the Joovv at least once a week to do this.  

    Red Light Therapy Conclusion

    Even though there are many other claims regarding the benefits of PBM, these are the improvements that I’ve seen from my own personal use.  This list is pretty amazing!  You can see why I would never consider taking these devices out of my routine.  Have you experienced any benefits from red light therapy?  Are you interested in trying?  Let me know in the comments.

  • My Daily Ritual

    My Daily Ritual

    The thing I am asked about most often is some variant of “How are you able to do everything that you do?”… It’s usually buttressed by things like: “You have so many interests.”… “You’re married with kids, how do you have the time?” or “Do you ever have down time? I just want to watch Netflix when I get home.” I never really know how to respond to this… it really is just the way I live my life.  It has been for a long time.   After talking to people a bit about this and enduring constant quizzing, it seems that it might come down to my strict adherence to a daily ritual.

    The Daily Ritual

    I call this a ‘ritual‘ because it really is something that I’ve built up over decades with an explicit outcome in mind… to live the life that I live. It’s not a routine (a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.), and it’s not set in stone. I’m constantly iterating on this daily ritual to make it better for me. That’s also part of the key… this is FOR ME… it’s been iterated on for most of my life. It’s been adjusted to fit years of medical tests and customized for what I know about my genetic makeup.

    Every part of it has been vetted and tweaked to make it overall positive for my biochemistry. This ‘ritual’ likely won’t work for you.  In fact, it will be a horrible thing for many people.  Maybe by documenting it, there is something in here that you will find useful. Possibly, you will be inspired to start on the journey of creating you’re own. At least, you will get to see how things change over time because I plan on continuing to update this post as my process evolves.

    My Daily Ritual is an Evolution

    This is a LONG post. Everything documented here is the current state of my practice.  This arose from years of iteration from collecting data about myself in great detail and experimenting with things to improve various aspects of my life. I’m always experimenting and this post WILL NOT document experiments. There were many failures and I don’t discuss those here. This is only for things that have become part of my permanent daily ritual. If you want to know about my latest experiments, ask me about them the next time you see me. At any given time, there’s usually only one thing that I’m experimenting with.  This makes it easier to identify positive or negative correlations and eliminate additional variables that could be skewing results regarding my experiment hypothesis.

    Before Ritual Comes Analysis

    How do I collect and analyze this data? I’ve used tons of things over the years, but at this point it’s essentially custom software that uses the Google Fit platform as central storage. I use several commercial apps and hardware for data collection and everything that I use integrates with Google Fit. This makes for an easy integration point since the additional software that I write just needs to be able to use the Google Fit API to enter or consume data.

    For many years, I manually analyzed everything. Over the last few years, with the advancements in Machine Learning, I’ve been slowly building software to help with my analysis. Everything that has become a part of my daily ritual arose out of a desire to make a positive change to some monitored data point that I felt a need to improve. I won’t really dive into the details about specific data points for every single thing in this post.  If you’re curious about anything specific, feel free to ask.

    The Morning Ritual

    I tend to wake up about the same time every day. No alarm necessary as I try to never schedule anything so early that I would need one. I have a skylight in my bedroom.  This is useful for slowly nudging me to wake up as the sun comes up. Embracing my own personal Circadian Rhythms has been very beneficial for me.

    Getting good quality sleep is also critical to me. Sleep experimentation was probably one of the very first things I played around with in order to increase my productivity. I followed a polyphasic sleep schedule for years, but no longer do that since it’s not really compatible with having a family or a traditional job. It was likely useful in training myself to make the most out of the sleep that I get. This practice taught me how to fall asleep fast, get into a state of REM sleep quickly and spend more time in deep (delta wave) sleep.

    The Wake Up

    The first thing I do upon waking, is the same thing I do right before going to sleep. I lay in bed for a few minutes mindfully breathing and doing a series of eye movements. The purpose of both of these things is to get the day started right by allowing me to reflect on what I’m going to do and essentially ‘turning on’ my brain. This morning breathing takes on different forms (meant to energize me for the day) unlike my nightly version which always follows the same pattern and purpose (to get me in the right state for sleep).

    My sleep quality dictates how the rest of my day progresses. Most of the time, my sleep quality is high, occasionally things go awry and I have ritual adjustments for when this happens. I won’t really go into the specifics of the adjustments since it is a pretty rare occurrence… I do so many things to make sure that my sleep quality is always rock solid. I’ve used many products to monitor sleep quality over the years, but my current choice is by far the best, least intrusive method for me. I use the Oura app to check the details on my sleep quality right after completing my morning breathing routine.

    Hydrate

    I get out of bed and drink a glass of water to rehydrate. It also helps with getting consistent body related measurements.

    I take measurements with a bluetooth smart scale. The one I use measures weight, BMI, and mass for body fat, muscle, and bone. It also tracks percentages for everything including visceral fat. The app has it’s own trend tracking, but I ultimately settled on this model because it integrates with Google Fit.

    Get Moving

    I get moving soon after this in an effort to get the lymphatic system flowing after sleep. My morning starts with a quick yoga routine. This changes daily and is focused on increasing flexibility. The daily variance is mainly to focus on areas where I may be having issues or feel that I need improvement. The constant here is that there are certain ‘whole body’ flexibility enhancing postures that I do no matter what. In addition to these, the other constant is a mix of moves to sync the two hemispheres of my brain. The basic gist of how this can be done is described as the cross-crawl.   Finally, I do a quick rebounding routine that I’m still playing around with.

    Turn on Your Red Light

    At this point I get in a quick bout of red light therapy. Most days, this is a 10 minute HRV raising meditation using the ‘moments’ feature of the Oura Ring facing the Joovv followed by another 10 minutes that is focused on rehabbing any body part that feels like it could benefit from some photobiomodulation.

    I make a giant pot of tea that I sip on throughout the morning. I rotate between green, oolong and pu-erh teas. If I need an extra boost, I’ll make a cup of espresso as well. It’s important for me to get a healthy dose of caffeine early in the morning as I benefit greatly from Ben Greenfield’s Strike-Stroll-Shiver routine. I make sure to drink a few cups before getting a few steps in and then I throw on an ice pack vest for the first 20 minutes of my work day in order to bring on the ‘shiver’.

    You might notice that my morning ritual doesn’t include breakfast. I used to be a big advocate of ‘grazing’, but over the last few years I’ve become a complete advocate of pursuing Metabolic Flexibility.

    My work day

    At this point, my work day begins… I’ll do a quick scan of email and some dashboards that I have to see if there are any immediate fires that need to be put out. Usually there is nothing, but I find it great to get these out of the way ASAP. Notice that I don’t spend any time on non-essential email, social media, political news, etc. That can wait for another time since the mornings are for Getting Things Done (GTD).

    Getting Things Done

    The rest of my morning consists of complete focus on completing two objectives. One personal objective and one ‘work’ objective. I decide what these are at least a day before I start working on them. They meet the ‘next action‘ criteria from GTD… that means that I know exactly what needs to be done, there is no investigating, there are no unknowns at the time that I decide to work on them.  There is just a set of straight forward steps to actually get that objective done that requires some uninterrupted time to do them.   Most of the time, these are easy, sometimes they take longer or ‘unknown unknowns’ are discovered.

    Deciding What to Work on

    I mentioned above that I have at least two main objectives to focus on during the day.  Additionally, whatever I do is driven by the following:

    • At least once a week, I force myself to come up with one ‘new business’ Objective. This can be a new approach to lead generation, new source of revenue, or a new investment strategy. The time to do this is often spread throughout the week, but at the end of the week, I should always have a new Objective in this class of work that is mostly ready to be worked on. This serves to constantly get me thinking outside of the box with regards to diversifying revenue streams in order to insulate my lifestyle from any unforeseen circumstances that can jeopardize any one existing source of income.
    • Any remaining time I spend reading… I currently use Pocket to keep track of anything that I’d like to read that isn’t a physical book or stored in Google Play Books.

    If I finish early, I’ll dig into some email at this point (always time boxed) or review other objectives that are ready to be worked on and pick one of those. During this time, I try to remain focused on my task except for one allowable interruption…

    The Importance of Movement

    Another great feature of the Oura ring is that it will alert you if it feels that you haven’t moved enough over time. I’ve always felt that moving while working was extremely important. I’ve used standing desks for more than a decade.  Since standing wasn’t enough, I also purchased a FluidStance.

    The FluidStance is a balance board that you can stand on at your desk and based on what I’ve seen it is way more effective at increasing your activity/calorie burn than just standing alone. I’ll alternate using it and just standing flat on a mat throughout the day and my Oura ring will never alert me to get moving while doing that.

    Occasionally though, I will sit while working and I’ve developed a few quick routines to run through on Oura ring activity alerts that are designed to get my heart rate to ~80 percent of my max for 3 to 5 minutes. A mini trampoline near your desk is a great investment for meeting this need!

    Workout

    Even though I’m a huge fan of Incidental Activity as the majority of my exercise, I run through a vigorous short but dedicated workout routine.

    Most days, I finish the ‘workout’ portion of my day with 20 – 30 minutes in the sauna.  I use an infrared sauna and find that it helps both my recovery and sleep scores.  If you are interested, I have written about the benefits of my regular sauna use.

    The Mid Day Transition

    By the time mid day approaches, I’m almost always done with my two major objectives for the day. I mark the transition by taking a few minutes to stimulate my brain differently by learning another language. I use duolingo for this daily practice. You can find and follow me there by searching for my name. I’ll do another quick email checkin and then update/review my GTD lists. The goal here is to get any pending problems front of mind for the next part of my day.

    “Lunch”

    Now it’s time for my lunch… this is normally around 2PM unless I’m meeting someone for a more traditional lunch time meeting. My rules for what I eat aren’t extremely strict… just a balanced meal that minimizes processed foods and sugars. I tend to keep it low-carb since I like to save my carbs for beer 😀 There is a ritual for how I break my intermittent fast though.

    Breaking the Fast

    I break my fast by drinking an Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) cocktail. This is simply one tablespoon of ACV (with the mother) in a full glass of water, with a pinch of sea salt and cinnamon (sometimes I had a touch of lemon juice or an electrolyte powder instead of the salt). I do this for several reasons, but it started for the same reason I started TRF… I have a history of diabetes in my family and both of these practices have been shown to minimize insulin spikes and resistance. Further research and analysis has also shown evidence supporting an increase in gut health leading to enhancements in nutrient extraction for the food I’m about to eat.

    Additionally, ACV has been shown to support an alkalizing effect on the body. This prevents leaching of calcium from your bones, has been shown to support your immune system and is generally beneficial for many endogenous processes within your body. The morning breathing techniques that I use are also designed to maximize this alkalizing effect.

    After consuming this drink, I’ll eat a handful of algae tablets. Good fiber, high in magnesium (more about this later) and generally starts to make me feel full and helps prevent over eating empty calories during my ‘feeding window’.

    Supplements

    I’ll then wash down my morning supplements with another glass of water. I’m always experimenting with new things based on the data that I’m tracking and areas that I want to improve, but the current required items include (not all at the same time, or consistently every day):

    • multi mushroom blend ~150 mg of each (Currently using Host Defense – Stamets 7 Multi Mushroom Capsules and a custom blend)
    • custom NAD+ boosting capsule
    • 1000 mg fermented chlorella
    • 2500 mg Micronized Creatine Monohydrate
    • 1000 mg Curcumin
    • 3000 IUs Vitamin D3
    • 1.2g of Omega 3s
    • 80 mg Hyaluronic Acid
    • 300 mg Nicotinamide Riboside Chloride
    • 200 mg Tongkat Ali
    • 420 mg Phosphatidyl Choline
    • 1 g Berberine HCl
    • 300 mg Alpha-Lipoic Acid
    • 3 mcg Boron
    • 20 g of Collagen Protein Powder
    • 20 g of other protein (either grass-fed whey, pea, hemp or straight EAAs… I change daily based on my workout/diet plans for the day)

    The main goal here is to increase blood flow, enhance my immune system, reduce inflammation, build/maintain lean muscle and stimulate the production of BDNF.  Shameless self promotion… you can purchase high quality versions of many of these supplements at a discount at BulkSupplements.

    Fat

    The only other daily thing here is adding some high C8 Capryilic Acid Content MCT oil to my meal. This can be mixed into just about anything, and makes a decent salad/sandwich dressing just by itself. This is done again to decrease blood glucose levels and has the nice side affect of increasing blood ketone levels which gives me a mental boost for the afternoon. I’ll go through some of my less pressing emails while eating lunch and prep for making the remainder of the day productive.

    Walk

    Another basic thing that I’ve been doing for a very long time is a ‘lunch time’ walk. This started out mostly as a way to get some movement during the day and to get outside of the office on nice days. These are great reasons, but I’ve evolved this into an informal mindful walking practice. I get outside no matter the weather and walk for at least 20 minutes. I’ve built an infinite labyrinth trail at my house that I walk for this purpose. I focus on the changes that occur to the trail day by day and let my subconscious churn on problems and the upfront items from my GTD list that I’ve recently reviewed. Some of my best ideas arise out of this practice or immediately after… plus I get another 20 minutes of exercise in during the day!

    Time to Learn

    Afternoon is all about learning and idea generation… most of the time I focus on getting more items in my GTD lists to the ‘next action’ state. This might involve investigating alternative approaches, digging into unknowns, but often requires learning something new.

    5 Hour Rule

    I started a basic practice that became my afternoon routine after reading about the 5 hour rule. I’m pretty sure I first heard about this through an interview with Warren Buffett. I did start out struggling to find my 5 hours a week to do this, but with practice and dedication, it eventually became the more like ’25 hour rule’ that it is for me now. This approach to learning, coupled with GTD, has really allowed me to supercharge my productivity over the years.

    During this time, I still pay attention to my activity levels the same way that I do during the morning and follow a similar routine for increasing my activity levels. The number one underlying goal for this time is to…

    Prep for tomorrow

    I never want to wake up questioning what is most important for me to do in the morning. It’s a waste of time when I’m in the best state for working on the real tough problems. This uncertainty often leads to poor sleep since I’ll ruminate on all of the things that I could possibly work on trying to weigh the pros and cons of each.

    Identify ‘Next Actions’

    Because of this, I want to end my work day by figuring this out. I review all the objectives that I have that are high priority items and pick the ‘next action’ tasks that have the highest ROI for at least one personal and one work related item. Barring any emergency that occurs over night, these will be the things that I focus on most in the morning. This eliminates any procrastination-related churn in my mornings and sets me up for a good night’s sleep with a defined set of items for my subconscious to ruminate on.

    Pre-Dinner Prep

    I’ll do a some quick body weight exercises to lower insulin-like growth factor a few minutes before eating dinner. Dinner, like lunch, is balanced from a macro-nutrient perspective, minimizes processed foods, but otherwise anything is game.

    After Dinner

    After eating dinner, I’ll usually take another short walk, but my ritual is much more fluid. This is time for friends and family. Hanging out, conversation and fun. There’s no real focus on working out since I’ve almost always met my goals during the day. I’m not thinking about tomorrow because I’ve already figured out exactly what I’m going to do (and I’m confident that it’s something that I can get done).

    Feeding Window Finish Line

    The only real thing that I do at this point is pay attention to the finish line of my feeding window. As this time approaches, I’ll take another few grams of glycine to drop my body temperature and encourage good sleep. If I feel any indication that good quality sleep may be a problem, (e.g. muscle soreness from working out, anything else weighing on my mind) I’ll take some CBD oil and eat two tablespoons of raw almond butter. This is a magnesium bomb, and done at the right time, increases Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA). GABA is effective at promoting relaxation (i.e. better sleep) and the magnesium also promotes muscle recovery.

    Minimize Blue Light

    Sometimes work bleeds over into the evening.  When that does occur, I want to do everything to minimize any detrimental impact to my sleep quality. I use wellness settings on all of my electronic devices to minimize interruptions, dim brightness and alter color hues after a certain time. If I spend any time in front of a screen, I use blue light blocking glasses. I go to bed when I’m ready to sleep. I do my bedtime breathing exercise and start the whole process again when I wake up.

    Conclusion

    So there it is… the daily ritual post. I’ll update it as things evolve. I’m more than happy to answer any questions about why I do things the way that I do. I held off on going into the many reasons why things have evolved the way that they have to keep this readable.  Believe me, there is a method behind all of my madness.  I’m more than happy to discuss it if you really want to hear it! I could write just as much about why I DON’T do certain things or the experimentation involved in arriving at my conclusions.  If you’re curious about either of those things inquire as well. Most importantly, if you decide to go down this path for yourself, I’d love to talk through your process and share some of the things that I’ve found.

  • Oura ring review

    my oura ring

    I’m fanatical about tech gadgets, but even more so for wearables and things that reliably fulfill my needs as a “Quantified Selfer“. Good quality sleep data has always been elusive. Many devices that I’ve tried were so intrusive as to ruin any chance of actually getting good sleep. Others just did a terrible job of reliably collecting the data that I wanted. I backed a Kickstarter for the Hello Sense. This was one of the first devices that really generated useful data. Not only did it track my sleep activity, but the base unit also collected data about my bedroom light levels and air quality. Sadly, the company went bust and the device ultimately became unusable after the cloud servers were shut down.

    Multiple Generations of Oura

    While looking for a replacement for my sleep tracking fix, another Kickstarter project caught my eye… the Oura ring.   I initially held off on backing the project since I’ve been burned by so many crowd funded tech gadgets in the past.  Despite this, I kept a close eye on its progress and saw many great reviews on the original ring from people I trusted. When Oura announced a gen 2, I jumped right in to purchase one as soon as I could.

    I used the Oura gen 2 for years and immediately purchased a gen 3 when it was released.  Many people panned the gen3 initially because it required a subscription in addition to the cost of the ring.  Fortunately, as a long time backer, I was given a lifetime subscription.  Both the gen2 and gen3 have experienced pretty much everything I can throw at it…. I am a HUGE fan of this thing! There isn’t much that I can complain about and I feel that it is worth every penny.

    The Oura Ecosystem

    The Oura ring system consists of the ring, a mobile app, and the Oura Cloud.

    Oura Cloud

    Oura Cloud is a web based equivalent of the mobile app which allows you to dig a bit deeper into the data.  It also includes an API that you can use to write apps for the Oura Cloud or pull the data collected by your ring into other systems.  You can also participate in crowdfunded research projects through apps that are written for the Oura Cloud.  I’ve participated in a few of these.  The most notable was in using the Oura ring as a COVID early detection device.  Ultimately, this lead to the ring being used in the NBA and UFC for this purpose.

    Oura Hardware

    The ring looks like… a ring… much more so than the first generation.  It doesn’t make you the focus of a room like wearing Google Glass did.  This is a pretty amazing feat considering all of the sensors that it packs and the fact that you can go days without needing to charge the battery. It’s waterproof and fairly resilient… I’ve definitely pushed mine to some limits that I probably shouldn’t have and it’s survived. 

    Oura Mobile App

    The ring connects to the app on your phone via Bluetooth.  You can put it into airplane mode and still have it collect data for quite some time before needing to sync it.  The Oura App displays a timeline of your data summarized by day.  The Oura app is divided into four sections: Readiness, Sleep, Activity and a Dashboard that surfaces your ‘scores’ from the other three.  You can then drill down into each section for more details.  There is also an ‘Explore’ section that contains meditations, breathwork and sleep exercises as well as additional learning material.

    Sleep Tracking

    The sleep tracking of the device is rock solid. I’ve done tons of things to wreak havoc with my sleep in order to test the ring’s ability to detect it. Every morning after destroying my sleep in the name of science, I’d check the app. It would basically tell me, “Dude, go back to bed, you need it”. There really was no fooling its sleep detection.  This has continued to improve with the third generation device and they are now beta testing a new sleep algorithm that seems to improve things even more.

    I bought the Oura Ring mainly to track sleep time and sleep quality (as measured by the amount of time spent in the different stages of sleep), but the ring is so much more than ‘just’ a sleep tracker. The Sleep section tracks a few additional items above and beyond what I bought the ring for. These include a resting heart rate trend and sleep latency.  The latest version of the hardware also includes breathing regularity (blood oxygen sensing).  After using the ring for a bit, a ‘body clock’ which displays your personalized sleep chronotype is generated.  You can use this to better align your circadian rhythms.


    Activity Tracking

    The Oura Ring is also an activity tracker. I’ve been wearing various activity trackers since the first versions were commercially available. I’ve never really been a fan of wearing anything around my wrist since they always seem to get in the way, but I’ve always overlooked that in order to get the activity data. The Oura app has recommendations for how much activity you should be getting (this changes daily based on your ‘Readiness’ which I’ll discuss later). It also tracks your progress toward your daily goal and the intensity of the activity that you do. You can also turn on notifications in the app to remind you to get up and move on a regular basis.

    For activity that gets your heart pumping, the ring does a pretty good job of tracking. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t always do the best job of tracking activity that is less vigorous. The app has the ability to manually input this type of activity.  Additionally, the Android app has Google Fit/Health Connect integration.  Most of the activity I want to track tends to get picked up by the ring, but there are certain activities (i.e. impact martial arts) where I remove the ring and need to manually track the activity. I like the fact that I can get near real time feedback about my activity intensity. This has allowed me to develop a routine that I can do frequently throughout the day that gets me into a high intensity level of activity very quickly (this is a must for any practitioner of High Intensity Interval Training).

    Readiness

    The ‘Readiness’ section of the app really pulls together information from the other two sections to give you a general idea of how much you should push yourself on any given day. It takes into account how well you’ve been sleeping and how active you’ve been and combines that with trends regarding your HRV, body temperature and respiratory rate in order to provide a suggestion for ‘pushing your activity to new levels’ or just ‘taking it easy’ on any given day. I’ve found this to be great for me to figure out when are the best times during the day for me to workout and also what supplements seem to help me recover faster. It’s also pretty effective at giving me a heads up when I might be coming down with something and gives me an extra verification point to rest instead of pushing through it.

    Expl-Oura

    The ‘Explore’ section of the app contains several guided meditations and breathwork routines that are categorized by goal.  You can also configure ‘unguided’ sessions.  This is useful if you use other meditation apps like I do.  In either case, the Oura ring tracks your HRV, Heart rate and skin temperature during your session.  There is also a ‘Learn’ section containing videos and slideshows containing information on how to use the many features and improve your scores.

    One of the most valuable features for me is the ability to add ‘tags’ throughout the day regarding things that I do with the aim of improving my scores.  You can then filter based on these in order to see the impact of these practices on your scores over time.  I would LOVE to see alignment between the Oura tags and similar functionality in Google Fit in the future.

    Conclusion

    So there you have it… my Oura ring review. It’s an awesome piece of hardware. Besides the fact that Android functionality often lags behind iOS, my only other real complaint is that I wish it came in half sizes… that would make it even less obtrusive than it already is! If anyone is interested in getting an Oura ring, let me know, I have a few discount codes that I can provide.

  • Fermenting Solutions

    My email newsletter is entitled Fermenting Solutions. It started years ago as an effort to ‘dog food’ AWeber’s Curate mobile app. It’s a semi regular chronicle of a current project that I’m spending time on… the trials, tribulations and the interesting beverages I’ve had to drink while trying to work through them. You can read past issues here. If you’re interested in getting all new issues in your inbox, you can sign up using the form below.