Unexpected ways to wake up your brain

Very true. To add to this - prefer busier, well-lighted places to quieter, darker places to stop and sleep.

I imagine, just like everything else, it doesn't work the same way for everyone. I have tried several techniques of this personally, including filling my lungs and holding my breath, and exhaling completely and holding my breath. The latter works better for me. I have no special training but I can hold my breath for about a minute if my lungs are full. The problem there seems to be that it gets me even sleepier. However, if I exhale and hold my breath it only takes about 10-20 seconds and the response is very immediate and sharp.

I should also note that I don't tend to pass out. Last time I came close to passing out, I was in a state where most people would have (blood pressure at 70/40). Perhaps this trick is not for you if you pass out easily.

It's meant to help you catch bugs and thus acquire protein.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mq7UKQ3Jm4&t=45m

(Yes, it's humor, but BAHfest is great at satirizing wild ass guesses that have become mistaken for legitimate hypotheses when we really don't have the evidence to say we know.)

No evidence for the O2 boost for yawning. Actually, we don't really know what yawning is good for.

So true.

That would be a combination of not being addicted to caffeine (so you are not in need of a fix) and the better REM sleep you had prior to waking up.

In my opinion!

my pet hypothesis is that caffeine catalyzes energy consumption, at the expense of efficiency. that is to say, drinking a cup of coffee in the morning makes me a good worker for 1 hour, then i pay the price over the next 5-7. in contrast, no caffeine means a slower start, but more total "energy" towards work gets produced. basically, i dont think you can top natural energy regulation.

There are very few highly populated places where climate would reduce your ability to cycle most days of the year. I'm from Whistler, Canada, I spent a few winters commuting by bike every day, and it's in the Coastal Rainforest, so lots of rain too.

Sure, if you live in Moscow/Anchorage/Montreal/Stockholm/etc, it's miserable for a few months, but the rest of the time, you can cycle.

Plus, cycling in the cold wakes you up even faster than cycling in the heat.

There's not that many places where you end up biking through deep snow, on ice, in -20F for a long part of the season, right? Normally its one of the other (really cold, or ice) - if you have long periods of -20F then you have packed snow on roads, not ice, at least we do back home, and packed snow is fine to go on.

I'm from Sweden, and when I lived in Gothenburg I had no issues biking in -10 - -20C or so (which is what it maxes out at in that area, and even then only for a few weeks at most).

Snow is fine to go on - the worst is like 0C when its been melting and freezing so you get slippery ice, but even then you do fine most of the time as at least the car parts of the roads tend to be maintained with gravel. Assuming you live somewhere that regularly has cold weather your roads are most likely decently graveled too.

Not really, living in Minneapolis I've had several (perhaps crazy) friends who biked to work every day year round excepting maybe one or two of the worst days.

I recently took the plunge and started biking to work semi-regularly as well. Here's a few points that got me going.

Sweat. If you have a shower at work then great. If not there's no reason to go full tilt on the way to work. Relax, go at a reasonable pace to avoid working up a major sweat. We have a shower at the office, but I rarely use it because it's not too hectic of a ride.

Store stuff at work. Drive into work on a Monday and bring clothes and stuff with you and store in a locker or somewhere at work. Then bike the rest of the days and drive home later in the week.

If you can leave your laptop at work the odd day.. you'll enjoy life at home that much more :)

I can easily pack a change of "work clothes" (used to include dress shoes), toiletries, camp towel and lunch in a small backpack or largish messenger bag. Having a shower available is strongly recommended, however. Built-in in hydration for the backpack isn't a bad idea either.

I've gotten lazy and haven't biked in in awhile, but I used to do it every day by heading into work about 30-45 minutes earlier than I would drive, swapping my shower immediately after I got up for showering at work, and compensating for a slightly longer commute. If you compare the amount of time you'd spend driving to a gym, working out, then driving somewhere else, it's a no-brainer, bike commuting kills two birds with one stone and saves you gas money. Or you can try what I did for a while and get up even earlier to bike to the gym, workout, shower, then bike to work, using the cycling as warmup and cool down for the gym workout.

A backpack solves all of those issues. None of that is necessarily very large.

As for the shower, some work places have showers. Depending on how much you work out and what the climate is like you may or may not be a heavy sweater after a ride to work. People who work out often tend to sweat more because their bodies adapt to their routines and start to sweat at the slightest hint of physical exercise. People who don't work out extensively often tend to be more reserved when it comes to sweating. You are going to work, not a date. So it may not be an issue at all.

I can't wait to get a bike next season and start biking to work.

When I have plans to bike to work, I usually stage extra sets of work clothes/shoes at my office the day before(when I take mass transit), so I can carry a light load on my bike commute.

Luckily for me, my office provides showers and lockers, a laptop I can keep at home, and free lunch on the premises, so load is not much of an issue for me.

If you do need to carry some stuff, you can always get a pannier(a bag mounted to the side of your rear wheel), which is more comfortable than a bookbag filled with stuff.

I've picked up and dropped a moderately sized caffeine habit at various points in my life. The biggest effect on me of being off caffeine is a reduction of my tolerance for caffeine when I have some next (smaller amount has bigger effect) and clearing out the addiction (can go days without caffeine without headache). I don't see appreciable changes in my quality of sleep (exercise does that!) or my ability to focus.

I have every expectation this differs dramatically person to person, and I encourage anyone with any sort of habit to examine it, but what you say does not necessarily apply to everyone.

I find I quickly become tolerant to the awakening and focusing effects of caffeine but not to the anxiety-inducing effects leading to increasingly anxious thought patterns.

Every time I start in on caffeine again because of a crunch I end up regretting it later.

Yep, that exact page is one of the reasons I stopped. I like to joke that I am an insect since caffeine is also a poison for many of them.

If it's just about nicotine though one can use gum, patches, vaporisers - in fact I can't really see why anyone would smoke now, you can get the drug in a cleaner way more cheaply by vaping.

It seems like choosing to chug anti-freeze when you've got high-class liquor available.

Wow, I haven't read the article but I must say that I am very impressed with its organization and presentation of ideas/data.