Hello folks, a little catch up here on the podcasts as I get back from my vacation in VT. While I was there, it became clear to me why they’re crushing COVID-19.
Not only is their positivity rate the lowest in the country, their economy was bumping pretty well. It didn’t take long for me to see why, and I think they’d be an excellent model for the rest of the country.
In this episode of the podcast, I discuss:
- Why VT is crushing COVID-19
- The debilitating post-viral illness keeping people from shaking COVID-19 and the Facebook group looking to research it
- My self-care routine for the next month, aka, I need a vacation from vacation
In the podcast I discuss some changes in measures I take with my Fitbit and Iphone showing how quickly you can lose resilience when you let things go off the rails. Here are the graphs of that data:

As you can see, my resting heart rate jumped signficantly on vacation and is mostly back down to where it was. Chalk this up to a change in diet, shifting circadian rhythms, and drinking beer most of those days. Sleep also took a hit:

Towards the end of vacation, my sleep score was lower than it normally is, a weekly average of 79. Additionally, my O2 would fluctuate widely during sleep. Currently it’s back to my normal of 86. I chalk this up to the circadian shift, but primarily daily beer consumption.
Finally, the change in heart rate variability, taken with HRV4Training. Here is my before vacation HRV:

Coming back my HRV took a major hit, but it’s begun to reverse and return to what it was before I left:

I cover what I think is going on and how I intend to reverse it and improve my numbers over the ext month with diet, exercise, and other factors in the podcast, check it out:

Any thoughts on how blue-light is thought to kill retina cells?
http://news.utoledo.edu/index.php/08_08_2018/ut-chemists-discover-how-blue-light-speeds-blindness
Also, do you have any plans on putting your podcast on youtube?
Hey Ben,
Too much blue light can be bad for your eyes, but it is essential for setting your circadian rhythm. As with everything, there needs to be balance. Increased ROS is a cost of doing business for our eyes, but it comes with a payoff of good circadian rhythms. Thus, we just want to make sure there is a period where our eyes aren’t exposed to blue light so that they can heal.
Currently no plans of putting the podcast on Youtube as it’s difficult to record video. Possibly in the future, though. Definitely wouldn’t rule it out!
Thanks for reading & listening!