![]() ![]() But how many of us have schedules that consider this?Ĭircadian disruption is becoming recognized as a major factor in problems with our mental and neurological health – Alzheimer’s, depression, and even schizophrenia are all associated with this misalignment with our natural rhythms. Essentially, we are responsible for telling the body what time it is!Įating, exercising, waking, socializing, and relaxing at specific times of the day, in habitual patterns, are the major time controllers that your body will adapt to. The routines we create with our daily habits and activities create a coordinating force. The combination of eating patterns, stress levels, social activities, and body temperature all place input to the alignment of our cellular and cerebral clocks. Living in a permanent state of neurological jet-lag wears out the brain and our entire biology.ĭaylight is one of the primary ways to tune your biology, but it’s not the only one. We experience an excess of artificial light, blue-light emitting screens and devices, and often stay up late beyond the hormonal cues to sleep (which correlate to cortisol dropping at about 10am, or 2am if you miss the first drop!). So, the next day you are not prepared for daytime eating, but geared up for another night time feast, consider that this reduces your ability to digest meals during the day, and makes you hungry at night.Ĭhanging sleep patterns is another disruptive signal that the body tries to adjust to. The need to digest at midnight is fed back to your brain via cells in your digestive system, and it will adjust your schedule accordingly. This is why eating late at night is one of the worst cues you can give your biology. For example, it only takes a few days to switch to a new time zone in a foreign country. They are highly sensitive to change, in some ways they are too efficient, eagerly supporting any new routine you embark upon. While your liver (which mops up and excretes toxins) is more active in the morning before you wake up and eliminate the waste.īut these adaptive optimizations rely on regular information updates to keep them operating efficiently. For example, your digestion (and all the juicy enzymes it needs) is most active during the middle of the day. Each of your organs has peak times of operation aligned to when the brain thinks it will be used the most. These energy optimization processes are finely tuned. At night we mainly lie still and sleep, so the body plans regenerative and cleansing functions. During the day we typically need to move, think and eat so, the body prepares for these activities. Your body has limited energy, and resources, so it has to prioritize what to do and when to do it. This temporal (time-based) deregulation is so severe that neurologically it shares similarities with a traumatic brain injury. ![]() Sadly, our modern environments of artificial light, eating at all hours, and skimping sleep has created a permanent state of Circadian Rhythm Disruption. The information you take in from the environment helps your brain update a master schedule of when to produce specific hormones, enzymes and neurochemicals. Your brain has two primary functions, the first is survival, the second is predictive optimization.
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