Date: November 10th 2016 #Vancouver’s Data-Driven Wellness Meetup

Attendees | Introductions

John

I love the idea of the intersection of science and intuition. I’m a primalist. I believe that our deepest settings are the hunter-gatherer sense. I’m interested in taking the paleo philosophy in a 360 degree view in my life. I’m interested in learning about interesting ways to measure my sleep.

John

Enjoyed the last meeting format where it was informal. The flow of the evening looked after itself, didn’t need guidance or an agenda, which was great. I’m retired now since 2 years. I’m from a development background. I’ve been getting into high-performance cycling and part of that is coaching. There’s a lot of science in maximizing your performance as an endurance athelete. One of the important aspects to that is sleep. A lot happens when you sleep. when you’re training you’re basically hurting muscle. The rest/recovery side of it rebuilds your muscle. Since I retired, my sleep pattern went haywire. I got to a point where I couldn’t get any sleep. I realized I needed some structure. I brought some blue blocking goggles. I use these goggles to get a pinkish-rosy tint. After a couple of weeks, I go to sleep really quickly because of these glasses. I put them on at 8:30/10pm and I pass out at 10.

Jason

I’ve been interested in sleep for a long time. I’ve had good sleep and bad sleep in my life. I’ve tried a few different ways to have better sleep and get into conciousness in the morning.

Joy

I didn’t have any expectations. I have an interest in sleep in general. I like what you’re saying about integrating the world of science and the non-science world. I’m a counsellor myself. I want to learn about evidence-based techniques to help people and reduce human suffering.

WakeMate

Kris

My hope is to learn things about sleep in the quantified self context. I want to know what we can do to measure our sleep better. Smart phone apps are wildly inaccurate, and there’s EEG machines but they make it uncomfortable to sleep.

Rizwan

Colin when I saw the name VDDWG, it caught my interest. Part of it was trying to learn about new ways to do it. And I think the data part is important because there’s so much anecdotal information out there. Even I do this. We get into habits and do things on faith. I want to find a group that has a data-driven approach. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for or what I have to offer, but I’m here now and we’ll see what happens.

Philosophy

With VDDWG we want to create an intersect between wellness and the scientific method.

Format

We’ve had one meeting so far and the format has been kept open. We’re not sure how to proceed but lets see

Topic of the Day

Sleep

Minutes

Kris

Six years ago, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to learn about my sleep. And I used a headband at night MyZEO. Most people don’t have the opportunity to learn about their sleep. I wasn’t getting any deep sleep because I wasn’t having an physical exercise.

Headtrip Book The book talks about how you woke up in the middle of the night as a watch state where you wake up in the middle of the night and use that time for introspection.

The only known measurement tool for sleep in EEG but even minute movements that break it.

There’s a researcher at UBC who’s hypothesis is that there is a correlation between core temperature and sleep. If we can figure out a core temperature device, then we can fast-track sleep research.

Personal Sleep Monitors: Do They Work?

John

I have a MI Band and it gives me information about my sleep. According to it my cycles are very short. I read an article about the ŌURA.

Jason

I’ve heard cold showers can reduce your heart rate variability. Does that say something aobut the cold shower or the HRV?

John

I don’t see a strong corelation between working out and with sleep. At times you’re hurting or have muscle soreness.

John 2 I do a lot of camping in the wilderness. There’s actually a lot of light. There’s moonlight. There’s stars. On a full moon you can actually read.

John If you live away from light pollution, your eyes become more adjusted to darkness

John 2

they say that the hunter-gatherers could see the moons of jupiters

Rizwan

Fatigue Science

Kris

OpenBCI You can control shit with your mind.

Vancouver has a neighbourhood grants. Also the RADIUS Social Innovation Seed Fund, maybe we can get some money to do this.

What do people think about the discipline around their sleep?

John 2

I’ve never really had a discipline around sleep. I’m a sleep wimp. When I’m tired, I don’t function. I can nap really well. Is it better to sleep once in a chunk or nap in the day? My optimal bedtime is ten.

John

Napping is supposedly very beneficial. A lot of top cyclists will nap after a training session. Sometimes I wake up and ruminate. Sometimes I just have to write it down or I get a solution to coding and I have to get it out of my head. It’s only since I got the goggles, I feel like I’ve slept really well.

Harondel

I’ve had really random schedule jobs. I’m used to not having sleep for long periods of times. Having a set good bed time is a good thing. Nowadays I’ve been up at 4:30 am everyday, not sure why. I’ve been using blue blocking glasses, and I’ve had no impact on it.

Joy

I have a regular sleeping scheduling. You want to make sure your sleep hygiene is there. Everything is by association so I’ve built a type of regular habits for sleep. I’ve had a routine to start winding down before bed. What happens throughout the day really effects my sleep. When I’ve had a bad day, those things really effect my sleep. I’ve been practicing medition and that helps me sleep and wind down. I grew up in Asia and we used to have nap time in the middle of the day. It has to be just 30 mins of napping for me, otherwise my day gets worse.

Colin

I keep my sleep regimented. My sleep is the least organic thing. I use noise canceling headphones, a special pillow, cannabis. I find it hard to go to sleep, and when i sleep, I find it hard to wake up. Napping is a bad idea for me. I use an app called SleepCycle but I haven’t found any pattern yet.

Jason

The whole idea of discipline is something I’ve struggled with a long time. Either I’ll set a bedtime and be strict about that, or I’ll just do it organically. I do better with having a specific bed-time, having a regiment. Recently I’ve been waking up at the same time every day and it’s been working well. I don’t nap, doesn’t work for me.

Kris

What are some of the Top few things that put you to sleep?

Emotions app that breaks down your emotions.

Rizwan

I’ve never thought about this before, but it seems like my emotions have such a large impact on my sleep.

Joy

That resonates with me too. It seems like I sleep better with a partner but I don’t have the same sleep when I’m single.

Kris

Read Attached: Science Adult Attachment Help

Herondel

How Loving Couples Fight

John

What about drugs? Melatonin helps you sleep. But taking too much makes your brain not produce it.

Joy

I find taking melatonin makes me not sleep.

John Term: Paradoxical Responder

John 7 Foods that’ll help you sleep better

Bananas Herbal Teas Salmon Sweet Potatoes Raspberry some other things but nutrition is important.

Herondel

I use Binural beats to get hyped up. I’ve used

Kris

Magic Leap

Rizwan

All we have data but we don’t have an output variable. So what are the output variables do we care about?

Kris

What would you like to see next month?

  • Start getting some data?
  • Emotional intelligence for next month
  • How can we best prepare? maybe prepare with a topic
  • Aroma Theraphy
  • Data science and sleep