Portrait of Henry Ashford, JavaSleep contributor
JavaSleep Contributor

Henry Ashford

10 pieces published
A photorealistic wide shot of a dimly lit gym at dawn, a single empty…
Exercise July 2026 · 8 min

Neuroticism and Exercise: Is Quitting the Gym a Character Flaw or a Factory Setting?

The question I kept circling was narrow and a little humiliating: after fifteen years of joining gyms and quitting them, is my inability to stick with exercise a defect of character I could fix with…

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Close-up photorealistic shot of a smartphone lying face-up on a rumpled white bedsheet in…
Sleep Apnea July 2026 · 6 min

Reading Your myAir Score Without Gaming It: What CPAP Therapy Actually Rewards

You wake up, reach for your phone, and there it is: an 82. Or a 96. Or, on the night you slept like the dead, a disappointing 71 because the mask slipped at 4 a.m. The number feels like a grade.

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A photorealistic overhead shot of a person lying awake in bed at 3 a.m…
Sleep Apnea July 2026 · 5 min

The Weight-Gain Trap of Sleep Apnea: Why the Cause and Effect Run Both Ways

You have probably heard the tidy version. Weight goes up, the airway gets crowded, the throat collapses at night, and you snore your way into a diagnosis.

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A close-up still-life photograph on a dark wooden nightstand at night, showing a modern…
Sleep Apnea June 2026 · 4 min

Three Months on CPAP Therapy: Nasal Pillows vs. Nasal Mask vs. Full-Face

For three months I slept under a sleep-tracking app and a prescription, swapping one piece of equipment every few weeks: the mask.

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A photorealistic overhead shot of a person sleeping alone in a dim bedroom at…
Sleep Apnea June 2026 · 5 min

Sleep Apnea Definition: I Wore a Home Test for a Month to See What "Stops Breathing in Your Sleep" Actually Means

For a condition defined by something as basic as breathing, the sleep apnea definition is oddly hard to pin to a felt experience.

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A close-up photorealistic photograph of a modern bilevel positive airway pressure device sitting on…
Copd May 2026 · 5 min

The VPAP and COPD Treatment: Where the Standard Advice Holds, and Where It Frays

The standard clinical advice goes something like this. If you have obstructive sleep apnea, you get CPAP. If you have COPD with daytime hypoxemia, you get supplemental oxygen.

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A wide-angle photograph of a Hadza encampment in the Tanzanian savannah at dusk, low…
Sleep Science May 2026 · 4 min

What Hadza Sleep Logs Reveal About Cross-Cultural Sleep Patterns (and the 6.25-Hour Number)

A 2015 paper in Current Biology by Jerome Siegel and colleagues followed three pre-industrial groups — the Hadza of Tanzania, the San of Namibia, and the Tsimane of Bolivia — with wrist actigraphy for…

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A close-up photograph of a vintage analog alarm clock on a wooden nightstand reading…
Sleep May 2026 · 5 min

A Six-Week Experiment in Sleep Prioritization Over the 5 a.m. Gym Alarm

For six weeks, I ran a small experiment on myself: weeks one through three, I kept the 5 a.m. gym alarm I'd been setting for most of two years.

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A compact travel CPAP machine sitting on the wooden nightstand of a dimly lit…
Sleep Apnea April 2026 · 5 min

Best Travel CPAP Machines (2026): AirMini vs. Transcend Micro vs. Z2 Auto

The best travel CPAP machine for most people is still the ResMed AirMini — if you can tolerate its waterless humidification and proprietary tubing.

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