this is surprising! Not that this would be easy to just do, but have you ever leaned into it for a while (like a month) and seen if that persists? I'm obviously not a doctor or anything -- I just wondered in reading that whether it may possibly be a change shock that would subside after a brief period at a higher activity level, resulting in the best of both worlds.
I had something similar like this. I think I was able to fix it. The theory is that your sleep is still poor, even though you sleep through the night. This is causing high cortisol levels during day time and higher resting heart rate. This is elevated further after doing moderate exrercise and takes a long time to get back to normal as your sleep isnt adequate. If your heart rate doesnt go down enough, then your sleep quality gets destroyed.
The solution, for me and I am guessing for you, is this: Stop the cycleing. First fix sleep. Track it using Wellue O2 Ring. If the scores are not good, the reconfigure CPAP - use sleepapnea reddit for inputs. Once sleep is sorted as per O2 Ring, then it might take a few months for you to recover. After that you can restart moderate exercise and things should be fine.
It did get better when I stopped cycling, as much as I loved it. I'm now walking instead and feeling much better. I intend to increase volume over time and once my VO2Max is back to my baseline then I may introduce cycling with an eye on going easy and eating enough before/during/after exercise.
Thanks for the advice, it is good to hear that it worked on other people.
Probably a lot of us, especially parents of small children.
I've also been struggling with sleep for the past five or six years, waking up in the middle of the night feeling strangely wired up. With a lot of trial and error I've been improving the quality of my sleep.
Three years ago I went to a sleep clinic because I noticed symptoms of sleep apnea and they were able to confirm it and prescribe a CPAP machine, for which I am grateful, but the overall experience was disappointing. When I explained during the follow up that I still was waking up at night feeling stressed they brushed me off and suggested some herbal remedy. It turns out that the pressure they had prescribed me was laughably off, which I only learned through trial and error for a period of two years until I found what works for me -- almost twice what they prescribed.
You mention some factors that I've also noticed having a big impact, like stress/work, walking outdoors (1hr minimum for me), stretching, foam rolling, early dinners, and only drinking one cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Another one that seems to have a weirdly strong impact is what I eat for dinner, with legumes/beans being by far the most beneficial -- maybe something to do with blood glucose during the night?
Doctors will often recommend exercise, but I find that these days even moderately strenuous exercise like riding a bicycle destroys my sleep quality for several days. There's something about it that appears to be too physiologically stressing, even though ten years ago I was a happy as a regular gymgoer.