aResponder51

My response lacks rigor, but, the linked studies may give some insight into your first point. As to the second, third, and fourth... really, as much as I'd like to say I'm all for supporting women, it's midnight and I have some stuff to do before bed tonight. You sound like you're interested in the topic though, maybe you have a few hours and are interested in furthering equality? (No snark, real analysis like what you're doing is hard to come by)

from the NSF study: Female CS grads in 2012: 8,730 Male CS grads in 2012: 39,230

from the ACS study: Women's respresentation ... remains significantly underrepresented in engineering and computer occupations ... which make up more than 80 percent of all STEM employment.

I needed a few more hours sleep on days with a lot of exercise (hours long sessions).

Sleep hygiene helps. Lights out, blackout blinds, loud fans and notification sounds off, no TV in the bedroom. The sleep you get is of a higher quality.

I haven't done it yet, but reddish lighting for late evening is something I'm doing around the middle of fall this year.

There are projects using all these tools. The initial onboarding learning curve is more of a cliff. The results are pretty smooth.

Depends on the size of the feature, and the maintainer, but you're right about "talk to the maintainter."

Some projects, you'll want to do a weekend of really rough work, contact the maintainer, get their thoughts. Others, you'll want to do 8 days work, get it far enough along to show, get their thoughts.

Often though, before you write a line of code, talk to them.