Quantified Self Experiments / Summary

Valuable findings

Which factors influence by sleep.

Caffeine, bedtime start, sickness, vitamin D3 and negative emotions significantly and independently influence my sleep in restorative phases. I'll lower my caffeine intake, will go sleep earlier, take sun / D3 every other morning, and try to reduce stress. Detailed analysis is here.
Outdated: The later i'm going to sleep, the less total sleep time i'll get. My optimal sleep time around 21:30 - 22:30 and will stick to it. Explained here.
Outdated: Average intake of 68 mg of caffeine between 8:30 and 13:00 is enough to destroy ~30 minutes of my sleep in restorative phases. Explained here

Increasing Deep Sleep

Pink noise stimulations increase my Deep sleep by ~11 minutes per night. Additional ~1h20m of DEEP sleep per week seems to be a significant effect. Explained here. Update: After having a talk with Frederik Weber, a sleep scientist, i'm a bit sceptical on my results (stims may just increase k-complexes which leads to more deep sleep time, but not because of increasing slow waves amplitude / count which is a main target).

Physical activity increases mood

Physical activity significantly increases my positive emotions and decrease negative emotions. 1 hour training / 10k steps is enough to get a valuable effect. Explained here

Tracking body temperature

Oura ring temperature seems to be accurate and reliable proxy to core body temperature and sensitive to body temperature spikes caused by sickness. Explained here

HRV and sickness

Standing RMSSD seems to be a useful tool which provides insights about illness onset and recovery and helps make a decision of resuming physical activity. Explained here

Increasing HRV with physical activity

Increase in physical activity leads to increase in HRV. Weekly standing HRV more sensitive to physical activity. Explained by weekly and daily analysis.

Relaxation and HRV

I have found that relaxations like massage acutely boost HRV.

HRV and Deep (N3) sleep

I was able to reproduce some studies which tried to asess HRV during Deep (N3, SWS) sleep by using ECG only data. HRV during Deep sleep derived from ECG only data were comparable to HRV derived with both ECG + EEG. It seems ECG signal is enough to assess HRV during midpoint of Deep sleep (but not enough to predict Deep sleep, at least not  at EEG accuracy level).

Arrythmia

I weared Shimmer ECG for long term and was able to detect arrythmia (Premature Atrial Contractions, PACs). It occurs 200-400 times per day, sometimes even 1000+. Also i was able to capture paroxysmal tachycardia episode.

Circadian rhythm

I've checked my body temperature circadian rhythm with iButton and it seems to be strong enough. Fitbit Charge 4 wrist temperature data also was accurate enough to reveal diurnal changes. Also i've found and measured power of resting HR diurnal changes.

Sleep health

Comparison to healthy population my sleep is fairly good. But i need to focus on lowering awake time during night.

Accuracy

Changelog

I've added changelog to find out fresh news / milestones /  changes in my QS framework.

Wearable stack

Every night, one of:

You can read here about both devices and channel decisions

Wearing 24/7

Every training session

Every morning

Health & Wellbeing articles in scientific review style

Coming soon

Data already collected, just need to finalize.

Interesting resources

Take into account that most QS experimenters doesnt bother with checking accuracy of their devices, blinding, statistical significance, confidence intervals, data distribution analysis, adjusting p-values for multiple comparisons, prone to observer/confirmation bias and other biases. So just add a ton of salt to the QS stories.

Books recommendations

General health and longevity

If you want to know how to improve decision making and account for cognitive biases, increase rationality

Data analysis

Data collection in progress

Weekly

Occasional

Non-QS Hardware/Software/Tricks

I'm working on Macbook M3 Max 14, 128GB RAM, 4TB. Almost all time I'm using Dasung Paperlike 253 as main monitor (B/W eInk) in pair with Netfi Ultra 3.5K Lumen. My keyboard is Aurora Sweep (soldered myself, ISRT layout) with Chicago Stenographer keycaps (porcelian cold cast resin) and I use Ploopy Nano trackball. I use Noble Audio Spartacus as headphones and Cayin N3 Ultra as DAC, Logitech BRIO as camera & mic. My phone is Pixel 9 Pro Fold (GrapheneOS) and 13 inch Onyx Boox Max is used to read PDFs / books.

Sleep. I sleep alone in separate bedroom. I use eight sleep to cooldown bed during night, cut foam eartips (3M) to perfectly match my ear canal and use forclaz blue travel sleep mask (wear inverse) to block any light. Cold, darkness and quietness - are the best friends of sleep.

Coffee. I don't use coffee as stimulant and if my sleep wasnt perfect I drink decaff (swiss water). I wait at least 60-90 minutes after waking up (because caffeine in some way blocks circadian sync) and then drink 1-2 cups during 1 hour, avoiding any caffeine after that. I grind it with Commandante C40 MK4 and use Chemex with paper filter, which leaves no residue.

Circadian. eInk monitor helps to keep low level of light in the evening. During last working hour I turn off main lamp and use BenQ screenbar at lowest level. If I need to do something before sleep - that combo seems to be less disturbing compared to non-eInk displays. Immediately after waking up I go walk for 20-40 minutes to sync my rhythm (light during circadian morning syncs the rhythm). If I cant walk or go outside then I use Luminette for one/two 20-minutes sessions.

Teeth. I usually wash my teeth after dinner with Oral-B non-waxed floss and Oral-B IO Series 7. Every 2-3 days I use ROCS Remineralizing Gel to counter acid food destructive action (especially coffee). After drinking coffee I at least wash my mouth with water or use mouthwash (water + baking soda + mint oil + xilitol) which alkaine and counters acidity.

Supplements. I go to the gym ~2 times per week and drink casein protein (without added sugar etc) + creatine + milk. Thats all. Sometimes I may use a bit of Inulin / Psyllium. I've optimized my diet (low glycemic load, high fiber, mostly whole food, processed food is limited) to have almost all my bloodwork in healthy range for all kinds of vitamins / minerals / hormones etc.