Stamina – Page 11 – Julie Fredrickson

I’ve always been prone to energy dips in the afternoon. I wake up immediately ready for the day but after lunch and another of work or activity and I’m heading off an energy cliff. If I allow myself a burst of sleep I’ll be back and feeling as energetic as I was in the morning right as my body insists on an energy dip as it is dinner time. Two hours later and it’s basically bedtime just as my second energy burst is coming on. Not great timing if I’m honest.

I used to force myself through afternoon lulls with caffeine or attempting to slot in a workout to push for energy. Neither really worked well for my rhythm or energy. Once I went on medical sabbatical I was able to test out the afternoon nap. The Mayo Clinic agrees it has proven benefits for cortisol levels and stress. WebMD has a long roundup of benefits like lowered blood pressure. The only thing you have to look out for is if you are an insomniac then late afternoon naps might push your bedtime back.

This is a concern for me as I regularly get too worked up to fall asleep easily. I practice all the sleep hygiene best-of hits like blue light blocking, dark cool rooms aand magnesium and still I find myself longing to find my phone and doomscroll Twitter. My biohacking efforts on the most restful night of sleep are easily derailed by the need to dunk tweet or reply guy.

I long to find the ideal balance of nighttime rest and day time napping to make my ideal circadian rhythm shine. I wonder if I should be one of those types that breaks their sleep pattern into two blocks. Biophasic or segmented sleep always seemed like a cool hack for maximizing energy. I just don’t know if it would accidentally break me.

As much as I want to go on some sort of sleep optimizing spree my gut tells me I just need the sleep that I need. I probably need the eight hours at night along with an hour during the day. It’s just fine that I sleep more. It’s literally the best thing anyone can do for their health.

The tricky workaholic part of my brain fantasizes about having an even block of productive work that shifts my bedtime so I have a six hour evening block to match my six hour morning block. I get indignant that after my nap in the afternoon instead of rising into a second workday my energy is consumed with practicality like dinner and sleep hygiene routines. I should not push my body for my workaholic fantasies but the bio hacker in me really wants to try.

As part of my commitment to quantified self and biohacking I have a physical rehabilitation protocol I cobbled together. Two years ago at the start of my autoimmune my journey I couldn’t walk easily. The ankylosing spondylitis manifested in my upper spine meaning I would struggle to get from my bed to the bathroom. I had to shower using a stool. I walked with a cane. This was not great for my cardiovascular health or my muscle tone. I was in this state for well over a year.

As the inflammation has become controlled in the past six months, I’ve been faced with a long rehabilitation. How do you build back stamina when even minor exertion was beyond one’s capabilities? As it turns out you do it one step at a time.

I’ve kept it simple. I get up out of bed every hour and take 250 steps. You’d be surprised how much a commitment to small consistent movements builds on itself. Once I got used to regular “get up” movements and pacing the room, I focused on adding small increments. Add in a hundred more steps at a time and now I’m comfortable hiking for an hour a day on flat or slight inclines. Thanks to a totally inconsistent stretching routines (a mix of Pilates and Alexander Technique) my muscles have retained mobility so that adding in more mileage has always felt comfortable.

I don’t have a program that is specific to rehabilitation though I suspect I should. I just committed to adding 5% a week more steps till I was able to walk 3 miles at a time or about 7,000 a day steps with a small amount of activity every hour. I suspect the regular activity each hour helps more than the steady state work but both add up to fitness gains. I have been adding in weight lifting and found that my strength is reasonably good. The real issue is that if I go to my full strength capacity I find myself struggling afterwards as healing and natural inflammatory processes are still a challenge for me. It’s as if the actual fitness isn’t the issue but rather my capacity for recovery.

Today I was able to successfully hike the NCAR trailhead in South Boulder. It’s a moderate intensity hike with some scramble and a gain of about 750 feet over a 3 mile circuit. What surprised me the most was that I didn’t have any perceptual issues with fitness. The exertion felt fine. The challenge was the occasional spike of pain. I wasn’t entirely sure if discomfort was a function of not being capable of managing the trail or simply that I’m still prone to system cascades. I can’t explain it any better than that. The trail was muddy and I lost my footing sending me into a fight or flight cycle that I needed to let pass.

Now that I’ve reached a point where normal activity is possible I need to find the next step in my cumulative rehabilitation program. The area where I can add 5% gains each week. If anyone has suggestions I’m open to it!