Ben Mann Monthly Apr 2024

CPAP, Outlive, baby soccer, earbuds, pillows

Purpose

• An index for my memory

• A menu of topics for my next conversation with you

• A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it

• A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable

Photos

Experiments and experiences

• Resuming CPAP

  • Since I stopped taking antidepressants, my sleep efficiency still seemed low, ie I was sleeping 8 hours per night but not feeling rested. I took my CPAP out of the closet again, and the first night I got a 96/100 sleep score on my Garmin watch, and then 100/100 the next day for the first time ever!. More importantly, I felt well rested. It's been about two weeks using it most of every night every, and it continues to be effective. I bought some CPAP mask wipes to avoid skin irritation. While my skin is still a little irritated, it's better than before. Being rested makes such a dramatic difference to my mood and willpower to exercise and eat well. Hope it keeps up!

• Acarbose & fitness update

  • Inspired by Outlive (see below) I ordered another CGM to get a sense of how acarbose affects my blood sugar. My weight has started to slowly drop again now that I'm back on the exercise bandwagon. I've resumed 7 minute workouts as a backstop. Between the acarbose and the increase in exercise I'm curious to see how my stable I can get my blood sugar.

• Headphones update

  • After much more research I decided to try Sony WF-1000XM5. They're great! The capacitive controls are a little finicky but the basics work reliably. Passthrough vs cancel are both plenty good enough, and the small tips are compatible with my tiny ears. They never fall out even when bouldering or doing jumping jacks, presumably thanks to the tips being a foam material I've never seen on any other earbuds. The only downside I've noticed is that swapping between devices is sometimes a manual process, but it has generally worked well.

• Goose pillow

  • I was pretty happy with the memory foam pillow I've had for the last year, but it puts some pressure on my eyes, so I decided to try a down pillow. Wirecutter does not like down! After much deliberation I settled on Parachute's pillow despite the negative reviews that it's very flat. It does indeed flatten out, but it seemed to be sufficient. If I'm not careful when I go to sleep my neck sometimes hurt when I woke up, which never happened with the memory foam pillow. I'm glad I tried it but I'll probably stick with the memory foam.

• Euda's soccer class

  • We've now been going to soccer class for about 5 weeks. At first she was overwhelmed by the swarms of other kids trying to do the activities the coach suggested. Recently, she woke up, saw her jersey, and said, "soccer time!" excitedly. She loves it! She's learning coordination skills, how to share with the other kids, and following instructions from the coach. I was skeptical when we signed up. Could an 18 month old child learn how to play soccer? I'm now convinced! It's not soccer so much as "soccer ball and goal-based games and activities." What else should we sign her up for?

Life updates

• 📖 Started reading Nuclear War: A Scenario

• 🧠 Started Mindbloom's 6-week program

• 🍎 Claude iOS app released

Content

5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted

• Twice Cooked Pork 5/5 if you like pork belly

  • This recipe turned out great! To cut down clock time I pressure cooked the pork for 10 minutes instead of boiling for 20. I didn't have leeks or peppers, so I skipped those and served with rice and pea tips.

• Glossy Fudge Brownies 5/5

  • These might just be the best brownies I've ever eaten! Make sure to add some chopped toasted walnuts though.

  • I've used a glass pan to cook past versions not realizing it was making them dense and gummy. I halved the recipe so it fit in a 9" cake pan since it was the only metal pan I had. Worked.

• Outlive 5/5

  • I expected this to be a standard self-help book: "do this thing and you'll be healthy, happy, etc." But it turned out to be nuanced, personal, and well researched. He explicitly said many times, "There is no silver bullet, and the research is sometimes contradictory. Here's the best we know right now." He also shared his own struggles with fitness, mental health, and his struggle to balance his family and career. This is also not a book that was a blog post and inflated to sell copies. It's dense with concrete advice and references to the literature. Hat tip to my mom for recommending it! Below I'll share some of my bigger takeaways. I found this summary to be a helpful index.

  • Healthspan is what you should really care about, and that includes both physical and mental wellness and function. We have good data on how physical health declines with age, so if you want to be able to eg climb a flight of stairs without being winded at 80, you need a certain amount of muscle mass and VO2 max at 40. And the numbers are dramatic, so better get cracking!

  • Exercise has the biggest effect size of any intervention on healthspan (much bigger than diet, assuming you're doing reasonable things). Sleep is also important, and I felt was addressed more even-handedly than Why We Sleep.

  • Exercise - there are 3 considerations: zone 2 (123-153 heart rate for me) for base endurance and training the body to burn fat, interval training to build VO2 max, and stability/flexibilty training to avoid injury. Rucking (walking with a heavy pack) is suggested as a nice way to get many of these easily but I haven't found it easy to implement lifestyle-wise.

  • Sleep - all the usual recs, but reminder that cutting out all light sources or wearing a good eye mask can make a big difference. I've used Eight Sleep for many years now and swear by it.

  • Diet - quit alcohol and sugary things. Fruit is probably fine as long as it's not juiced or dried which concentrates the sugar too much and prevents normal mechanisms of avoiding overconsumption. Most people don't get enough protein, especially as they age.

  • Caloric restriction extends lifespan in unrealistic lab settings where things like accidental falls (leading cause of death 65+) and infections are not a risk. Fasting is likely not worth it for most people due to muscle loss.

  • The book goes into excruciating detail on kinds of tests, diet, and exercise, but most of these details likely wash out if you can get moving more often.

  • Be there for your family. Be present.

• 3 Body Problem 2/5

  • This was a valiant attempt to turn a big sweeping trilogy into a TV series. It didn't land for me. The original book is all Chinese people, and the TV series changes a lot of who the characters are, what they care about, etc.

• The Electrical Life of Louis Wain 2/5

  • Trying too hard to be quirky and failing? What's with all these cats?