My experiments with sleep

I am a fitness enthusiast. I have written about my investments in sleep in some early posts. If you are asking, why fitness and sleep are related, I believe you were living in a cave. Welcome to the real world, where a lot of interesting studies have strong conclusions about the importance of sleep.

(If you are new to this arena, would recommend you to start reading a masterpiece by Dr Matthew Walker. It is the best gift you can buy for yourself and reading it is really very well spent time. If books are not your thing, then he has been on multiple podcasts, recommend starting from here.)

I have tried all the hacks available on the internet as well as the suggestions. Be it blacking out the windows, having a cool temperature in the night, having a hot water bath before the bed, sleep supplements (not inducers) before the bed, reduced gadgets usage before sleep, blue filters on the phones. All of these small things have had a deep impact on my sleep quality. I used to not pay any attention to these things but now I am very conscious.

I really want to get better at sleep. What that means is, I want to have the following:

• Get my resting heart rate below 50bpm

• A good amount of deep sleep 

• A good amount of REM sleep

Resting heart rate needs to be below 60bpm for almost everyone who wants to have a good sound sleep. But I really want jealous of Jack Dorsey, when he posted his numbers after a Vipassana retreat. He got the resting heart rate to 38bpm. That is really awesome and inspiring. Jack really pushed the bar for me and made me realise that I definitely have a scope for improvement.

I started to read about cold and hot therapies. Again, there are scientifically proven benefits of sauna and cold shower. But I live in Chennai, a tropical town which really doesn't have a sauna facility. Nor it is not cutting edge enough to have a cryotherapy facility like this. Heck, I don't even have a bathtub to immerse myself in Epsom salts. (I am very privileged and lucky to have a great life in Chennai, but these are all peeves of the first world).

But I found this in Chennai based on a recommendation from my fitness coach. Have booked a slot for this today. Will share my experience tomorrow.

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I came to know about Chennai Floats through a word of mouth recommendation. They are a spa for muscle recovery and relaxation. Unlike other spas, where a human gives you a massage or a physical therapy, this is different. Chennai Floats has an immersion pond with truckloads of Epsom salts in it. Because of the density of the minerals, you simply float in the pond. The pond is individualised, like small pod and completely enclosed. For sixty minutes you get to float in a small double-bed sized pool, which is fully enclosed. The water is lukewarm to make the pores of your body open up. You get a chance to be in dark and with mild music. If you are claustrophobic, you can keep the light on.

It was a unique experience for me. I took a shower before the session and popped in an earplug as per their recommendation. Then I got into the pod and closed it. I could float without any fear or worries. I chose to switch off the lights and be in darkness. The water did cause a mild irritation for my eyes as it is loaded with lots of salts. There was a small bottle with fresh water inside the pod with which I cleared my eyes. All in dark.

For first minutes there was a piece of mild and soothing music played and then it was switched off too. It was dark, silent, warm and I was comfortably floating inside. I wanted to consider it as a 60-minutes long meditation practice but just after 10 minutes, my monkey mind was back to work. I was thinking about work, tasks, projects to followup and so on. I just let it run and I was giving no fuck about it. A couple of times, I came to the sitting position and used the clean water to wash my eyes. Other than that it was a complete 60 minutes floating experience.

After the session was over, as an indication, the music started to play. I came out of the pod, took a nice hot shower and I was actually feeling really nice and euphoric. After a small talk with the person at the spa, I started to drive home and I was really feeling relaxed. At home, I got into bed and started to sleep like a baby in 5 minutes.

I woke up around 7:30 am without any alarm. I was curious to check my sleep performance in Oura. My resting heart rate hit an all-time low of 51 bpm. Now, I don't know if it is because of the Epsom salts but I would love to believe that it had an impact.

I have another session in the next week and I am told that the session has a compounding effect on sleep. I will update you soon on that.

Thanks for reading.