As I wrote in this post, I was trying a few methods to get back in synch with the normal waking world. Recall, I was trying:

1. Open my blinds during the day and rely entirely on sunlight to light my rooms.
2. Only use dim lighting at night
3. Avoid tv screens and computer monitors at night (especially computer games). Shift to reading paper books and listening to podcasts at night, and do the computer stuff during the day.
4. No big meals after sunset
5. No matter when I go to sleep, wake up at the same time every day (I chose 7:30 AM)

So, after a couple months, I would say the two most important tactics are (1) and (5). Even when I slip up and go to bed way too late, it really helps to just get up at 7:30 the next morning anyway. The funny thing is that it doesn’t even feel that bad, when your body is more-or-less trained to be awake in the morning. And, whenever I get up, I go look at the sunlight out my window for a minute or so. Supposedly this helps your mind register that it’s morning and resets your internal clock.

I have tried to follow the other rules, but I admit I regularly fail at (3) and (4)… I do a lot of programming/etc and sometimes I want to continue with that at night. I have been better about not eating meals too late, though at times I cheat and eat snacks. I can’t help it… it goes hand-in-hand with programming.

So far, it’s been a complete success… with only a couple exceptions, I have gotten up between 7:30 and 8:00 every day since that earlier post.

Based on the description I read of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome last night, I think this is the main sleep problem I have had all my life. Left to my own devices, I will stay up a little later each night, and sleep a little later every morning… until I’m going to sleep at 6am and waking up at 2pm… and it just keeps going forward until I “lap” normal people. It’s like my internal definition of a day is like 25 or 26 hours long.

Based on what I’ve read, and see others trying, I think I might be able to help my brain learn a more typical day-night cycle. So, rather than fighting fatigue all the time, I’m going to try a couple things to see if it can be corrected:

• Open my blinds during the day and rely entirely on sunlight to light my rooms. (I normally never do this)
• Only use dim lighting at night
• Avoid tv screens and computer monitors at night (especially computer games). Shift to reading paper books and listening to podcasts at night, and do the computer stuff during the day. I’ve been doing just the opposite, as I like to “compute” late at night; I’ll have to give that up.
• No big meals after sunset
• No matter when I go to sleep, wake up at the same time every day

I already have 0 caffeine intake, so I don’t have to suffer through that common suggestion. I already meditate, though I don’t do it every day. I already sleep in total darkness. I eat a pretty decent diet most of the time, so I’ll go ahead and check that one off as well.

The blog post I linked to above quotes a book (which I’ve reserved at my library) claiming that your internal organs work on a clock independent of your circadian brain clock. And, more importantly, they adjust their schedule much more slowly than the brain. The liver can apparently take two weeks to catch up, for example. So, I will keep in mind that I might feel all kinds of sub-optimal effects for a couple weeks when changing my sleep schedule, and I should just suffer through it and let myself readjust.

Stock trading is very intense and stressful, and while I don’t think it’s keeping me from sleeping, I am going to start taking supplements of folic acid and omega-3 fatty acids (above and beyond my normal diet and multivitamin). They are connected with coping with stress effects and generally enhancing mood. Maybe I will feel less “fried” after a particularly hairy day in the markets…. we’ll see!

This is hilarious:

I spotted it on the uglychart blog.

I came across this while looking for iPhone videos on youtube… some guy just walks into a live news broadcast and rips the mic out of the reporter’s hand. Weird.

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“… a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.”

So sad, and yet also, so funny… here’s the story, which I originally heard about through the Cranky Geeks podcast.

It’s shown up everywhere else, so why not here?

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Tigers under water, looks cool.

This is a pretty cool video, which I found via links at Trader Mike. Lions take down a baby buffalo, and a fight between the groups ensues. At some point, a crocodile makes a cameo appearance, deciding that it, too, would like to eat the baby.

The key moments are 2:00, 3:35, 4:11, 5:48, and 6:20. [EDIT: hrmm.. I see now that the embedded player only shows time remaining, rather than time elapsed, so if you're watching here, these timestamps aren't that useful. But, if you go see it at the youtube site they will make sense.]

I love that the “takedown move” the lion uses is exactly like what my housecats do if they are playing with a sizeable toy.

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I’ve really got to learn more about how this works… assuming it wasn’t staged.

(originally seen via Trader’s Narrative… in the blog post it says this guy has good research on the topic)

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The premise is simple enough… take some object, put it in a blender, and see what happens. So strange… I love it! This guy is kinda creepy sometimes, the way he smiles while stuff blends up. There are a whole series of “will it blend?” episodes…

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