Tag: Sleep

Categories
Chronicle Travel

Day 1827 and Year 6 of Daily Writing Begins

I didn’t feel like writing yesterday. That’s a weird way to start a commitment to a sixth year of writing every single day in public on this blog. I do intend to keep writing daily.

Maybe I should restart. My life was so full on the last day of the year, that the writing I had intended on doing on the last day of year five I simply couldn’t do. I fell asleep. It’s alright I had a beautiful synopsis of the emotions of the experience even if the links didn’t get passed may.

I felt the urge to sleep come on so strongly I wrapped up with a few “oh that happened too” sentences and I was out. Poof! Exhausted. Thankfully fireworks woke me up at midnight so I could ring in the new year.

I was midway into May doing a “best of” round up review by hand when that sudden “consciousness loss is imminent” feeling hit me. I’ve been driving the Dinaric Alps on an adventure that ended up in Sarajevo. I am sure I’ll write about the experience soon.

But now I have a meal and some unpacking to do. My 2026 is off to an interesting start. I’ve crossed three borders today. You can see how I might be tired.

Categories
Biohacking Travel

Day 1823 and Poor Percentages

I don’t know how much to trust my Whoop or Apple Watch at the moment but they agree that I’ve not had very good restorative sleep for a week or more.

I’ve never been the best sleeper and I sleep poorly when I’m on the road. I’m in the single digits for both REM and deep sleep percentages at the moment. And I seem to be spending a bit more time than I recall being awake at night.

There is something strange about being told by some electronic device monitoring your every move that you were wide awake when you don’t remember even a little bit of it.

I’ve been changing hotels and Airbnbs regularly as I make a pilgrimage across a strong mountain towns, so it’s possible I am unable to feel safe and secure enough to sleep deeply. But I’m suspicious that I’m awake as much as either device claims.

These are some bleak sleep times and I swear I wasn’t awake for 30% of my night. If I was awake you’d have seen me futzing about on Twitter. Well, at least I’d have read a book till I feel back asleep.

There is something up with my rest that makes me feel like I need to stay put for a litttle bit and get in a proper night of rest. My Whoop is showing me going from a more typical 4 hour range of rest down into the “wide awake” range of the Apple Watch over the course of the week.

And the Whoop seems to think I was awake as much as the Apple Watch did last night so I might need to accept that my brain is stewing in some toxic mix it’s not flushing through the sleep process. It also thinks I was in bed for over 10:30 hours but got barely a wink of proper sleep. My wake time was 30%

I’m going to take a break from the road trip and stay in place till I get my sleep repaired a bit. Hopefully it won’t be too hard to manage.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1822 and Frozen Mountain Time

I feel as if I somewhere between time and place as my present requires so much focus. My body and my mind are some distance from my soul though and I cannot seem sync up the sum of myself.

I spent much of yesterday at maximum attention as driving along mountain roads of variable quality requires focus. My body needed my mind on the job. My soul may have hidden itself away inside as I silently prayed the road would deliver me safely.

I’d enjoyed a few days of safety and quiet for Christmas and am now off on adventures that might be a bit more than I can handle. Crossing borders atop mountain passes is a bit of an adventure by any standard but add in ice and it kicks it up a notch.

Ice storms

I’m a little lost and potentially overwhelmed in my adventure as the logistics of making it from one city to the next becomes bogged down in challenging weather and road conditions.

Hotels aren’t quite as readily available as I’d hoped, nor are they priced for adventure. Between Christmas and New Year, it would seem everyone books ahead of time.

It’s one thing to toss a few Euro or dollars on a Best Western, but quite another to find yourself scouring Airbnbs on the mobile app as sundown nears and all you can see are $600 a night rundown flats. Inflation they say. Opportunistic nonsense perhaps.

Because really who wants to pay that much for a middling apartment in a small city just because you happen to be driving through on New Year’s Eve?

From the Alps the Rockies, variable pricing pops up at the worst times. And in principle I’d rather not book it. Maybe frozen mountain time should be enjoyed with a nap in the car instead.

Categories
Culture Emotional Work

Day 1819 and So You’re Safe Enough To Celebrate With Rest

I prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. What traditions my family had were mostly oriented around the night before Christmas and not Christmas Day itself.

We’d have a Christmas Eve dinner, our one item per person gift exchange, and most excitingly staying up for midnight mass with my mother

Christmas Day meant Christmas stockings and a jumble of different half heartedly attempted Christmas wishes and lots of long distance calls. Much less fun from a child’s perspective than gifts and late night ceremony.

So here I am on Christmas Eve all prepared for tomorrow’s day of stillness and rest. And I am exhausted. My body has sensed it’s safe to collapse into the kind of sickness that only comes after cortisol washes away on the tides of adrenaline going out to sea.

I’ve got not plans. My worship has never required a church. My prayers are between myself and my maker. I’ll be sick and happily collapsed into my own quiet reflection. May peace be with you.

Categories
Aesthetics Chronic Disease Travel

Day 1816 and Bedding Down

Having put no small amount of effort into preparing to be quietly away from the world for Christmas, I have made myself a very cozy in the chosen retreat.

Preparing for a closed world means I’ll have the freedom to close down myself. My body has been a bit up and down as it usually goes s these days so I’d like to log as many hours in restful response as I can.

Other activities I’d enjoy would be bathing in a warm tub, going for peaceful walks with no one around and reading for hours on end. Which seems manageable. It’s a time for prayer and contemplation.

My only wrinkle is the lack of available prepared food. I mentioned I’d be rather remote. And I did pack as much as was feasible

But if I can’t manage a few days of cooking simple meals like pasta and chicken that would be pretty sad. I’m lucky to have relied on that part of my life being handled by others as I do find the idea of cooking to be almost as tiring as the reality.

All of that moving around on hard kitchen floors as you juggle timers and fire is not a favored activity for someone with spinal issues. Still I’m optimistic if I stick to a quiet routine of reflection, rest and prayer maybe I’ll manage. Or perhaps a miracle will occur and I’ll be fed literally and spiritually.

Categories
Biohacking Emotional Work

Day 1765 and Hollowed Out

I’m at home with a freaky red light mask that could absolutely pass for a horror movie prop. My husband is sealed up in a hyperbaric chamber with two atmospheres of pressure and oxygen pumped in through a mask.

It may be Halloween but neither of those activities are horror movie material even though you could easily imagine them featuring as props in a serial killer series or Final Destination.

And yet these are things we are doing for health and wellness. One man’s horror movie is another man’s idea of a good night off and you can really tell we are tired childless adults that this is our idea of winding down on a Friday night.

The childless part wasn’t entirely a choice but we picked lives of professional intensity a long time ago so Friday night spent in self care is a sign that we’ve earned some respite.

Millenial success stories involve long hours. Millennials being all hallowed out on All Hallows’ Eve shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone, given the current state of American politics.

I’ve never liked Halloween much as if I want to dress up I don’t need social permission and I really don’t care for parties or socializing. I got all partied out in my twenties when I had to do a ton of it for professional reasons. I know it sounds glamorous but nightlife is work.

I had a tequila client and I had a hotel with the hottest nightclub in the New York City. I somehow managed to have both Patron and Le Bain as a client in my advertising agency era, and while loved both clients it did mean eventually all I can associate with nightlife is work. When I had a night off I stayed at home and read science fiction with a face mask.

Which means some things never change. There is no suburban holiday with children to dress up and take out. And I barely have recollections of doing any of that as a child. It’s no surprise this holiday has no hold on me

I don’t know why I have no fond memories of it but I don’t. I have almost no memories of Halloween. The precious few years in which we lived in suburbs, where I had both parents and I was young enough to go trick or treating barely register. And I don’t feel sad about it

I am much sadder about the kind of world we fought to succeed in as adults. I am happy to be home and with the horror movie treatments to heal the ravages of the real world that have been enacted on both of our bodies.

The long hours over decades, the multiple Covid infections my husband suffered, my own autoimmune issues and the realities of aging are not horrors but they are real. And I acutely am aware that Halloween is pretend.

And nobody should have to pretend that they aren’t hollowed out when they are. That is a fairy tale for children and for the people who still are. Neither category include me. It’s perfectly fine to be tired on a Friday.

If I’m going to put on a mask tonight it damn well better have health benefits. Here is to red light therapy and collagen masks. May they heal what ails you on all hollows eve. You can face the dead and your demons tomorrow.

Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 1752 and Too Much Protestant Work Ethic

I am pouring far too much autistic enthusiasm into my pet beauty shopping column that has a roughly half and half ration “theory of appearance culture in Protestantism” and half “specific routines at different price points” but I am enjoying it.

The heavier lift is going to be the work I am putting into the individual routines for the founding subscribers who have paid good money for help and I intend to give them my absolute all. I admit I’ve put way more thought than is probably necessary into each one but it’s a joy to track down specific products and geographic needs. It’s a shame that market editor was never a well paid enough job at a fashion magazine as I am pretty good at it.

Like, of course, I have opinions on the German drugstore market and its cost effective actives lines versus the old school naturals brands and where to acquire them. I don’t have quite as extensive a sample library of the market staples on hand but you know I spent hours browsing the grocery and retail shops when I was living in Frankfurt.

And on that note I’m going to bed early as I’m healing from my various biohacking experiments and I’m exhausted even with all the effort I’m putting into wound healing it still takes a certain about of rest to actually knit things together no matter how much time I spend with HBOT or what peptide stack I’m taking (it’s a spicy boy on the way in I’ll say that much).

Categories
Culture

Day 1711 and Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse

I’m from a part of the world where dark skies can still be sought out with relative ease. Not because we are undeveloped, but because it’s harder to live with elevation and snow. If you had the will to climb you could see the Milky Way.

The Rocky Mountain regional corridor has only in the last thirty or so years turned into prairie suburban sprawl in Colorado.

Boulder was a small town with little between it and Denver but farmland. Now from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins the entire I-25 corridor is densely packed.

Anytime a lunar eclipse crosses the astronomical calendar, I wonder if children still search out the skies for wonder and study. I remember telescopes being a highly coveted birthday gift and whole classes would seek out observatories for blood moons and totality.

Lunar eclipses arise when Earth’s shadow swallows all or part of the moon, obscuring its surface. A total lunar eclipse is the most dramatic version of the event and is often referred to as a blood moon. NYT “How To Watch the Blood Moon and Total Lunar Eclipse on Sunday September 7th 2025”

If you are on the eastern side of the world from Europe to Australia you will have an opportunity to see today’s full moon be shadowed by Earth starting around 7pm in CEST. Check date and time for your own area.

Seeing the sky is a beautiful and universal human experience. Precious few of us have seen our planet but the night sky and our moon have figured heavily in the shared experiences of entire species for centuries.

Categories
Biohacking Internet Culture

Day 1702 and One Shot Positive Results

I feel occasionally silly about how much I discuss the comings and goings of the internet and in particular Twitter.

And yet there is so much signal within the noise. It’s a fount of useful information that can rapidly transform your life if you pay attention to it.

One of the memes that I’ve enjoyed is the “one shotting” conversations both positive and negative. Recently the meta (as TPOT calls it) has been about the good things that have removed obstacles in their life.

Lots of good suggestions made up the conversation and I’ve tried all of them. Supplements like magnesium and Oxytocin. Theories of mind like the pathless path, jhanna meditation, somatic release, nervous system work, Alexander Technique, and even coaches like Joe Hudson. So many other modalities that I also use were there.

One of the one-shots mentioned was “unclenching” which has been doing numbers. I myself am trying to “do less” and even “no effort” as part of the minimum coercion effort as let’s be real my HRV (also a one shot) has been a little low.

Isn’t it delightful to be inside a set of good and positively reinforcing memes that make your obstacles disappear. I guess we should all be one-shotting so we can speed run reduced suffering.

If none of that is legible then consider poking about as it has made my life better and maybe it will make yours better too.

Categories
Chronic Disease Medical Travel

Day 1657 and The Boredom of Summer Surgery

It sounds a little ungrateful to say I’m bored, as I sit comfortably in a nice hotel bed with books, Netflix, room service, and a nice view but I am bored and a little miserable.

Antibiotics, discomfort and surrealism are a challenging combination for existential stability as it turns out.

I can’t do much beyond sitting still and getting up once an hour to walk a couple hundred steps. I have been instructed not to sweat so I can’t go outside much. Even in the evening with a breeze, it’s still hot enough to break a sweat and this is an infection risk.

Beyond sweating, you can’t disturb you wound healing in anyway so I can’t exercise. At best, I can do some light yoga and stretching. Short walks indoors are OK so I can’t walk the hallways but that makes staff nervous. I keep to myself mostly.

Most tragically for me as we don’t have a bathtub at home is that I can’t take a bath or submerge myself in water for weeks. So the gorgeous bathtub is simply taunting me. I love a good tub and this is a great tub.

No submersion in water for two weeks minimum

It’s even worse when I stare out at the beautiful pool. That is obviously an infection risk as well. No splashing around in Norma Kamali pretending at social aspirations. Oh yes Istanbul is the new Florence in July haven’t you heard?

At least the nearby Bosphorus is packed with cargo ships, I have no temptation when seeing the beach to have a dip in the water. I doubt diesel fuel is good for healing.

The highlight of my day is the hotel lounge’s breakfast where there are charming varieties of very Instagram friendly food. It is still in a hotel lounge but it’s a beautiful novelty.

Tea, pomegranate juice and rose honey yogurt

I’ve been annoyed by the variety of influencers who are also healing around me. There are any number of different plastic surgery and aesthetic patients in the guest mix.

If you think a week of blogging about an emergency sepsis slice job on some indelicate bits, imagine how weird it is to see an entire family getting plastic surgery and their daughter (I think?) is live-streaming most of it.

I’ve seen more puffy lips than I have fish on this trip and that’s my fault. I don’t have the strength dress up or walk to the Michelin starred seafood restaurant. Maybe that’s more for the elective surgery types and the emergency infection girlies have just enjoy the tiny yogurts.

That’s almost a bagel and lox set up right?