Sleep: Optimizing Circadian Rhythms
Our circadian rhythm is our body’s daily clock. It is one of the ways in which our body understands our environment, think about this – if there were a tiny person inside you and they were in charge of deciding which activities took place in the body and when, they would probably want to know what time it is right now in order to make these decisions. If we lived our hunter-gatherer lives this would probably be pretty easy, they could assess the levels of light that the receptors on our skin and in our eyes pick up, they could look at how much movement our muscles are doing or how often we are eating. If they wanted to know what season it is they could assess changes in our temperature and the foods that we are eating.
Well instead of a little person inside of us, there is a part of our brain that is responsible for all of these tasks, it is called our Suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN.
However, now that we live in an environment in which we can stay awake all night with electrical lights should we choose to, we have access to a huge amount of food that we can choose to eat at any time and we can easily spend all day indoors in a temperature-controlled building, our SCNs have a much harder job than ever before.
It is up to the SCN to send signals for particular hormones to be released at particular times in order to maintain good health and energy, including cortisol and melatonin (our main wake and sleep hormones) but this part of our brain can only respond to the feedback that we give it.
If what we give it are inconsistent eating patterns, late night meals, broken sleep and a sedentary day then it can only do so much and this can be a reason why so many of us struggle to sleep well. This was evidenced during the covid quarantines of 2020 during which time over 60% of the UK population reported sleep difficulties as a result of changes to their daily routines especially outdoor time, but circadian misalignment has been affecting health prior to this. In fact a recent review in the journal Science summarised that “In addition to being a risk factor for disease in the general and clinical populations (physical, psychiatric), slight drifts from the circadian rhythm are associated with suboptimal functioning at behavioral and cognitive levels in healthy populations affecting our overall daily performance. Circadian misalignment is proposed for explaining several clinical conditions, such as depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders as well”
So what do we do about it?
This is the good news – it is actually fairly simple to realign our circadian rhythm.
I always recommend that we treat the brain and body a little bit like a toddler in that the more routine we have, the better the brain and body behave.
If we can organise our schedule so that we sleep, eat, wake, move, get outdoors, use appropriate lights at appropriate times, then our body and the Earth’s night/day cycle can sync again.
This means planning and consistently adhering to a diary for most of us, turning off the TV at least an hour before bed, using candles instead or red light in the evening, going for a walk or standing in the garden shortly after waking, limiting caffeine intake and waking up at the same time on weekends.
These suggestions sometimes make me very unpopular but the evidence on circadian retraining is pretty clear - it may not be fun to wake up early on a Sunday morning but if it means a solid 8-9 hours sleep every other night of the week and waking with energy and enthusiasm every other morning, not to mention far greater physical, mental and emotional health, then I personally think it is well worth it.
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