Years ago, I read the results of a NASA indoor clean air study that involved several common plants. I was always surprised that one of the best performing plants in that study was English Ivy. I've always hated this plant... It was a nightmare at my parents'
house and every property I've ever owned. It's super invasive, taking over every inch where you're not combating it. It actively destroys structures and any other plants in its way. While battling this in my yard during the last month, I remembered this study and decided to pot some up and bring it indoors.
This is relevant because 'Winter is Coming'. I've been insulating and
sealing everything in order to reduce heating/cooling costs. Because I'm running out of places where fresh air is actively pulled into my house, I've been thinking a lot more about making sure the air inside is as pristine as possible. I have been planning on conducting some experiments in this area. Before I can do anything seriously, I need to establish a baseline for running these tests against. I've been researching the best equipment to purchase and how to conduct
the experiments in order to do this. If any of you have gone down this path already, I'm interested in hearing about your solutions (reply to this email, or find me on your favorite social platform).
Fresh air may play an interesting role in continuing the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) discussion from last month... I always noticed that I have tremendous HRV gains after a backpacking trip.
Another friend of mine who also monitors his HRV has mentioned the same. I often attributed this to the 'exercise' that I got from backpacking. What was always strange was that I would never see the same HRV gains when my step count in my normal life approached that of a backpacking trip. In the last month, I tested the theory that it was actually the time spent in nature that led to those temporary gains. I basically limited the amount of hiking I did (~1 mile) but
otherwise kept all aspects of the time spent in nature the same as a normal backpacking trip. I actually slept worse than I would have after being tired from a day of backpacking, yet my HRV still showed the same gains. I've updated my Joys of Backpacking post to reflect this thought, but I plan on testing this theory more in the future.
All of my HRV experiments are measured using the Oura Ring. I've written a ton about this device and Oura occasionally gives me discount codes to pass on to people who are interested in getting one. I was given more last week and if you're interested, you can take advantage of them on a first come, first served basis by clicking here.
My favorite recent purchase from last month's email was the Apollo Neuro. I mentioned how wearing it was providing astounding results in terms of my HRV. I wrote a full review of the device and the protocol that I was following. Check it out!
