What Makes a Difference to Your Body Clock…routine, routine, routine
Making good habits, and keeping to a routine of fresh food, exercise, stress reduction and decent sleep is crucial. Why? Because we are controlled by the 24 hour solar cycle called the Circadian Rhythm or Body Clock. To get the full story on how this works SEE HERE
Why is the Body clock so important?
We operate on 24-hour cycles, so what is new? Perhaps you didn’t know that the Circadian or Body Clock is just as important for regulating internal metabolic processes. Not just for coordinating with the environment i.e. when we sleep or wake up.
Opening your eyes kicks off this chain reaction. Your body sets a clock to release various hormones throughout the day. So you get energy, the right body temperature, thirst and appetite when you are supposed to.
What Goes Wrong if the Body Clock is out of Sync?
If you work shifts, have insomnia or are on medication or recreational drugs, take note. You won’t have a pattern of sleep that keeps your Body Clock in sync. Your health will be affected as a result:
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Obesity – body mass will be adversely affected if you eat when you are supposed to be resting or sleeping. Including eating late or before bedtime.
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Diabetes – the risk of insulin sensitivity increases.
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Drug use – being on either prescription or recreational drug can affect sleeping patterns and your body clock. Also when the body clock is out of sync there is greater risk of addiction so it is a vicious circle.
How to Fool the Circadian clock
There are ways to fool or assist your circadian clock at either end of the day if you want to cheat. Some top tips are as follows:
- Follow a daily or morning routine no mater if you are getting up at different times. SEE HERE for details of our Founder’s daily routine that might give you some ideas.
- Make sure you eat at the same time each day. Even if you get up at different times, don’t eat right away if you have missed breakfast but wait until lunch comes around.
- make sure that you do not access electronic devices 1-2 hours before bedtime. Otherwise the blue light emitted from the screen will make your body think it is the middle of the day and disrupt your body clock.
- the opposite is true if you are forced to get up really early every day. News readers use this trick. Get a blue light in the bedroom and put this on when you wake up and your body and mind will automatically be alert and think you should have been up for hours.
- conversely, at night time put on low level lighting that has no blue light in it as well as not accessing devices before bedtime, .
- if you can time your bedtime so that you get up with the light even better. Not easy to do in the winter in the UK but during spring or summer it is possible.
