Weird? Sounds like basic cart maintenance everyone should know.

Oh man the alternator betrayal. Mine was a water heater that flooded my closet, so basically we're the same person with different bad luck. I keep about 3 months of bills in a savings account now, mostly so I never have to do the credit card shuffle again.

The part about "the timing matters way more than the temp" is exactly what I figured out the hard way too. I did the cold shower thing for like a week because some guy on YouTube swore it knocks you out, and all it did was wake me up more, probably because shivering is not relaxing at all. What finally worked for me was showering about an hour after I got home, not right before crawling into bed. My body needed that gap to actually wind down, and going straight from hot water to pillow just left me sweaty and annoyed. I also stopped messing with the temp so much and just kept it warm and boring, same time every night. Took about two weeks before my body got the hint, but now I'm out in like ten minutes instead of staring at the ceiling till 4am.