I May Need 9 Hours of Sleep For the Foreseeable Future, and Caffeine Could be a Problem

When I started on CPAP, I had hoped that I would soon need less sleep since I would be sleeping way better. And while that may technically be true, I think I still need over 9 hours.

I spent around 5 straight days sleeping between about 7.5 and 8 hours, and I felt like I was pretty dead. I was still very tired in the morning, and waning throughout the day. I also generally lacked motivation and energy.

Last night, I slept more than 9 hours, and I do feel quite a bit better today. So for now, I’m going to try to make sure I sleep 9 or more hours each night.

I’ve also considered the possibility that caffeine may play a role. My AHI has been between about 1.5 and 2 for a couple weeks consistently. I’ve had caffeinated tea most mornings, and I’m wondering if even that small amount had an impact.

I reviewed data and realized that some of my lowest AHI nights were when I was sleeping in the alternate cabin. One notable thing about that is that I had tea every morning, but it always lacked caffeine. At the regular cabin, I still had caffeine.

It could also just be the bed, or some other environment factor. It’s hard to say at the moment.

Regardless, I think I’ll try avoiding caffeine for a while and seeing how that goes. If it leads to a lower AHI every night, I may have to forgo it permanently.

And if it turns out not to make a difference, I should consider what other factors may be leading to a higher AHI. I’d like to see if I can keep it under 0.5.

That’s it for now!

I Need to Stop my Phone Spam, and Start Answering Calls from Unknown Numbers

A lot of things have slowly started becoming very clear to me lately. As I’ve thought more about my business, the more I’ve realized that I’ve been really blind to some obvious truths.

One of them is that never answering unknown numbers on my phone is costing me business. It’s likely that most potential new clients that reach out to me are probably calling, and of those, few will leave a voicemail or email me if I don’t pick up.

In high school I worked at a small business office and the owners would be furious if the phone rang more than 2 times without getting picked up.

I should probably have a similar mindset.

The problem now, of course, is that I believe almost all of the calls I get are spam. In the past, I would have said that virtually all of them are spam. But I guess I don’t actually know that.

So first, let’s deal with that.

I might have to sign up for a service that removes me from spam lists. I know there are a handful of services that do this, and I’ll need to research them and see which is the best. I just added this to my list.

If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll be removed from most lists and the spam will die off.

It’s possible it won’t. Given my position in the web design industry, it’s likely I’m on lists that you can’t be removed from.

If I’m getting too much spam even after that, I may have to look into other solutions. I could have a robot-answering machine or find other ways to filter out spam. Maybe I need a service that scans numbers and makes sure they aren’t on any lists.

And then once that is all set, I need to start actually answering calls. I might need to figure out a way to have a schedule on my phone to have it ring but only during business hours.

Hopefully, if all my efforts pay off, I’ll start having lots of potential new clients reach out to me and I can start signing them up for our services.

I’ll write more about that in the coming weeks but hopefully things will really start working out. Little issues like this one now seem obviously problematic to me and I’m hoping to work through them all.