Do you adhere to a strict daily schedule of consistent and reliable sleep, work, meals, and exercise? We didn’t think so. Most of us don’t, conducting our busy days in a pivot-and-persevere mode that feels inevitable and may lead to difficulty sleeping, unpredictable hunger, and sudden fatigue during the day.
Indeed, ignoring our circadian clock (i.e., internal biological timing mechanism) can have a profoundly negative impact on our health, says Satchin Panda, PhD, author of The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight. Dr. Panda, a pioneering circadian rhythm researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says societal pressures and always-online living throw us out-of-sync with our circadian rhythms.
“Our modern lifestyle is disrupting a deeply ingrained, primordial, and universal code to being healthy,” he writes. “Adjusting the timing of how we live — and making easy lifestyle changes — is the secret to restoring our rhythm.”
What Is the Circadian Code?
Each cell in the human body contains its own clock, Panda asserts based on his research, and each clock is programmed to turn off (and on) thousands of genes at different times. For example, cells in the brain’s hypothalamus receive input from light sensors in the eyes that is processed to keep the body on schedule.
Other cellular timekeepers exist in other parts of the body, regulating a wide range of functions. “All of our body’s clocks work together to give us daily rhythms in sleep, metabolism, mood, and even gut microbiome,” explains Dr. Panda.
When the cells’ circadian rhythms fall out of whack, the risk increases for experiencing high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, digestive issues, and more adverse health effects. “Circadian rhythm optimizes cell function and boosts the immune system,” Panda writes. “To have predictable circadian rhythms is to have healthy organs. Just like a mutation in the genetic code can lead to disease, living in opposition to the circadian code can push us toward disease.”
Six Ways to Optimize Your Clock
The process for realigning your body and circadian clock is straightforward, if not easy to implement. “We can optimize our clocks in just a few weeks, and by restoring our circadian rhythms, we can reverse some diseases and return to better health,” says Panda.
- Spend eight hours in bed and go to sleep at a consistent time every night. “We need at least seven hours of restorative sleep,” Panda explains. “During sleep, our circadian clocks produce hormones and chemicals to repair and rejuvenate our brain and body.”
- Avoid eating for at least one hour in the morning. “After we get up, our organs take at least an hour to become fully awake,” Panda writes. “That’s the time when our night hormones decrease, and day hormones increase. By avoiding food for at least an hour, we can improve digestion and control blood glucose.”
- Practice time-restricted eating, aka intermittent fasting. “After breakfast, eat all of your meals and beverages within the next 8 to 12 hours, and repeat the same meal schedule every day. Eating at consistent times after 12 to 16 hours of fasting is the best way to maintain a robust circadian rhythm, which will help you get a better handle on your weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, immune system, and more,” he explains.
- Get 30 to 60 minutes of daylight every day. Even on a cloudy day, stepping outdoors can help resynchronize your brain clock. “Daylight is a brain booster, reducing depression, elevating mood, and providing the body with vitamin D, which keeps our bones healthy,” Panda writes.
- Exercise in the afternoon. “If you’re pressed for time, try to get 30 minutes of brisk walking in the late afternoon or evening, when your muscles are most efficient and the risk of injury to our joints and ligaments is lower,” Panda advises.
- Start winding down two to three hours before going to bed. “During that time, dim the lights and avoid food, which will reduce acid reflux and improve gut health,” he writes. “By dimming down light before going to bed, we actually crank up the production of our nightly hormones including melatonin to help you get into that restorative sleep that we all deserve.”
By promoting the benefits of circadian optimization, Dr. Panda says he hopes to encourage the widespread adoption of innovations like circadian rhythm-friendly lighting, tools that reduce the burden of night-shift work, and policies that dictate when schools open, when we work, and when we alter our clocks for daylight saving time.
“When we take care of our circadian rhythms,” he writes, “then everything in our brain and body falls into place.”
