Tag: SleepWatch

Sleep is for Suckers, Boom!

I finished up the routines I needed to run last night at a little before 3:00am. I wanted to go to sleep right away but I was too wound up. I knew a call was going to be coming to start the next phase of the process but I didn’t know when. I wanted to get at least some sleep so I spent about half an hour cooling down and I was able to finally conk out at a little after 3:30.

The text messages asking us to log back in started at about 4:45.

I didn’t actually go to bed. At least not to my bed. My work setup is still in Harry’s room after the quarantinie adventure so I just dimmed the lights a little and laid down on his bed. I messed up his pillows a bit. Sorry about that.

The SleepWatch app tells me I got 70 minutes of sleep. 55 minutes were deep sleep, so I have that going for me. I reached 14% of my nightly goal. Kick ass.

I’ve got a feeling today is going to be one of those “do not operate heavy machinery” kinda days.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

CPAP Fail

I’m really tired right now and it might be my CPAP machine’s fault. Well… my fault, but related to my CPAP machine.

I turned in around 11:30 last night… I think. (We’re using lots of ellipses in this post already. We might be shooting for a… world record) My watch told me I was asleep around midnight, which seems a bit later than I remember, but whatever. I woke up at about 1:30am (the watch didn’t catch that though) and realized I didn’t have my mask on. I laid down on the couch, expecting to spend some time reading before I went to sleep, and next thing I know it’s like two hours later.

Now if I fell asleep while reading, I would expect my iPad would have fallen out of my hands, right? Given how I was laying on my back and holding it in front of me, I could reasonably expect that it would have actually bashed me in the face. Nope. It was actually laying down next to me with the alarm clock app open and the alarm set for 6:30am. Did I set the iPad up the way I always do when I sleep on the couch (thanks to the CPAP machine that is a super rare occurrence now) in my sleep? Because I don’t remember doing it. I remember setting the alarm, but not putting it down with the clock app having focus and the screen turned off.

So I realized what was going on and put the mask on and switched on the CPAP machine and had a decent night’s sleep for the remainder of the night… but that whole experience was just… weird.

I mean… weird.

Now it’s 2:00pm and I am wrapping up my lunch break and I am seriously ready to go back to bed. Go figure.

Welcome to July

Happy July 1st, everyone. Summer in full swing. The forecast calls for a high of 80 degrees today with rain every day for the foreseeable future. Hooray.

Today is the day that my company’s Covid-19 lock down kind of comes to an end. Prior to Covid I worked in the building four days per week and at home one. Now it’s sort of the opposite. It’s not in the office once per week, it’s more like in the office an average of once per week. Flexibility is our friend. It’s actually in the office 20% of the month… so about once per week.

I was hoping to make my first day back July 13th as my last day before lock down was March 13th and it would be funny for it to be exactly 16 months. Nope. My nana sitting schedule will not allow that. I need to sneak in at least once before the 13th.

Change of subject, I went to sleep around midnight last night and woke up a bit before 5:00. I felt okay, even though I failed to get even five hours of sleep, but my SleepWatch app is telling me my heart rate dip was garbage. It says I was in restful sleep for about three quarters of the night though, so I’ve got that going for me. It’s going to be a long day.

The 50/90 challenge starts in four days. Are you ready to be bombarded with posts regarding awful, pointless, idiotic music, guitar playing, song writing, and recording? I strongly suspect this year’s challenge will end in a crash and burn, and it will likely happen quickly. As of this moment though, I am still thinking I am on board. In fact, I was thinking about swapping out my amplifier. I don’t want to go with a two amp setup like last year. I don’t want to take up that much room in the bedroom anymore. I have been using my Vox AC15 for the last few months. This weekend before things kick off I might swap it for my Fender Bassbreaker 15 again. We’ll see.

Did I mention I have an eye doctor appointment on Saturday? Does it make me sound like an old fart when I say I am seriously looking forward to it? Probably. Okay (son of) boomer.

Right, time for my Nana Sitting duties. I need to bring her the 8:00am meds.

Until next time.

Good day, eh?

Exercise and Sleep

Exercise helps me sleep. I have irrefutable anecdotal proof, or something.

The SleepWatch app for ages used to tell me that the closer I got to the goal on the Apple Watch Activities calorie counter (the Move goal) the better my sleep numbers would be. When I started the 30 minutes a day exercise thing last September I saw that my sleep numbers improved quite a bit.

A few months ago, late January I think, I stopped getting even the minuscule amount of exercise I was getting and saw that my sleep numbers got pretty bad. The restful sleep count went down. So did the sleeping heart rate dip. Everything that seemed to correspond to me feeling better the next day was worse which meant I felt much crappier than I had when I was exercising.

On April 1st I started getting my 30 minutes in again. After only seven days I can already see the sleep numbers getting better again. Especially the heart rate. The last few days have been excellent. Now I’m not really feeling any better rest-wise yet but here’s hoping that comes along eventually. There’s a lot of bad shit going on in life right now. I need all the help I can get.

Why Can’t I Sleep

Four out of the last five nights I’ve had epically bad sleep. I’m talking pre-CPAP therapy level bad sleep. Over the last week the nights that weren’t legendarily bad still weren’t good.

Why can’t I sleep anymore? Worry and stress and guilt are surely part of it, but why is it so much worse now than it was a couple of weeks ago? Nothing has changed.

My watch tells me that last night I got 3:45. How am I even alive anymore? What the hell, bro?

Absent Minded Apple Watch Guy

You’d think that after a year and a half I’d have this down pat.

I screwed up my technological sleeping workflow on two consecutive nights. What the hell, self?

I think it was June of 2019 when I first started using a CPAP machine to help me combat sleep apnea and constant snoring at 180 decibels. At that time I also started wearing my Apple Watch to sleep so that I could use it to track all sorts of sleepy time data.

It’s been nearly a year and a half. Every night, before bed, I put the watch on the charger to top off the battery. When I lay down to go to sleep I put the watch back on and BAM… sleep data.

Tuesday night, two nights ago to be exact, I put the watch on the charger at a bit after 9:00 PM. I finally lay my head down for a good night’s slumber at about 10:15. I fell asleep, but woke up some time later. I usually wake up around 3:00 AM or so and I looked at my watch to see if that was the case… and there was no watch there. What? I looked at the charger and there it was. Sonofa! I forgot to put my watch on. Fortunately it was only 11:30 so I was still able to track most of the night. Still… dumbass.

Wednesday night, last night to be exact, I went to bed at a little before 10:00. I sat up and doom scrolled the tweeter app for a while and then at a little after 10:00 I rolled over and slept. This morning I woke up and checked the numbers. Everything looked good. Then I noticed my watch battery was super low. What? I forgot to top off the battery before bed. What the what? Two days in a row? A year and a half into the sleep study process and I screwed up two nights in a row? I mean, I got my data and everything was fine but still… dumbass.

Is This a Bad Idea?

I was up really late last night. I had a load of laundry running and I didn’t want to fall asleep until it was done. I was also watching an episode of The Watchman and I wasn’t paying attention to the clock when I started it. It finished about 25 minutes after the laundry. Dumbass. Turns out I didn’t get to sleep until about 12:15am. My sleep numbers were pretty good* but there just wasn’t enough of it.

Seemingly unrelated, King Crimson guitarist/band leader Robert Fripp not only helped to invent what we now call Progressive Rock (with the first King Crimson Album, In the Court of the Crimson King in 1969, the point of it being the first prog record is arguable, but the arguments in favor are pretty good. For me, I tend to look at The Beatles Abby Road which came out a few weeks earlier), but he also helped to invent what we now call ambient music as well (with the 1973 release of No Pussyfooting in a collaboration with Brian Eno, under the name Fripp and Eno). He came up with a technique of using a couple of reel to reel tape decks to make loops of sound. He eventually developed a whole electronic style of playing, which he dubbed Frippertronics because he sounds like he’s one of those guys who likes giving funky names to stuff (I don’t know if that’s true or not, it just kinda seems that way. No offense meant, Robert). These days he uses a guitar synthesizer rig and some samplers to do his thing (and recently it’s been really making me want to dabble in synth pedals and loopers).

One unique (I think) aspect of a King Crimson show is that at some point before the people start showing up, Fripp will record a few minutes worth of an improvised ambient piece of music and they will play that through the sound system before the show starts. I think they loop it so it can start playing around the time the doors open, and end when the band takes the stage. Musically speaking they’re not really… ya know… musical. There isn’t a melody, and there really isn’t a harmonic structure to speak of. They are just meant to be background sounds.

So Crimson has been touring for years and years, and every show has it’s own original ambient piece. There must be a mountain of these suckers stored up somewhere. In the spirit of the Covid-19 lock downs being an existential kick in the nuts, Mr Fripp has been releasing one of these ambient pieces each week. Every Friday he puts one out via all the streaming services under the title Music for Quiet Moments. Music for Quiet Moments 15 came out today.

Why am I talking about this?

Because I have a playlist with all 15 pieces and it’s playing through the Sonos speaker in my bedroom/office right now, and as alluded to in paragraph , I’m pretty sleepy today.

Is it a mistake to combine these two seemingly unrelated things? Being sleepy and ambient music?

Ummmm… maybe I should switch to something noisier.

*My SleepWatch numbers for the past couple of weeks have included a string of heart rate dip values that were literally unbelievable. I did eight straight days above 20%, then one in the teens, and then six more above 20%. I’ve never had a run like that in the year-plus I’ve been paying attention. Granted, the last two nights have only been 13% each. A month ago I would have been very pleased with that. Now? It’s a let down.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 23

Ever since I started using the CPAP machine and wearing my Apple Watch to sleep, the first thing I do in the morning is check the SleepWatch app on my iPhone to check out my numbers.

This morning when I woke up I took my phone off the swanky charger thingie… inductive?  enducive?  What ever the hell they call it.  I opened up the SleepWatch app and…

Their servers are down.

I can’t see my numbers.

That was 3.5 hours ago and it’s still down.

But… but… but… what am I going to do without my numbers?  How am I going to get through the day?  Are the SleepWatch staff even still working through the lock down?

I NEED MY NUMBERS!  The CPAP app gave me a 98.  It ran for seven hours so I got full marks there, but I took the mask off too many times and lost two points.  98 is pretty sweet.  It doesn’t tell me how my heart rate dipped though.  It doesn’t give me sleep time vs restful sleep time.

I NEED MY NUMBERS!