Recipe for Healthy Living - The importance of "WHEN"

Welcome back to Part 2 of my Recipe for Healthy Living post. In this post I cover why WHEN you eat, sleep and exercise matters.

Our bodies have a “built-in” biological clock that keeps most body functions working efficiency and effectively over a 24-hour day/night cycle or “circadian rhythm”. This clock keeps “official time” by tracking different environmental cues, primarily daylight. Depending on amount of daylight as well as other environmental cues the clock can determine whether we should feel awake, sleepy, energized, or hungry. A cornerstone of healthy living is respecting and working within the parameters of these natural circadian rhythms by keeping your day/night cycles as regular and consistent as possible.

For example, the body is naturally programmed to digest food best during the day and ready to focus on cellular repair and rejuvenation during the night-time hours. So setting your schedule so that a majority of your eating takes place during day and most of your sleep during nighttime hours when it is dark is one way to sync your daily habits with your circadian rhythm.

However following this rhythm can be easier said than done. Our modern-day busy lifestyles often leave us eating meals late into the evening when the body is designed to be resting, “sleeping-in” when the body is meant to be active, or even exercising when the body is naturally meant to be at rest. Misaligned eating, sleep or exercise times can repeatedly disrupt our circadian rhythms, lead to distorted cell behavior, and throw off several critical body functions such as digestion, hormone, and immune function just to name a few. Our clock simply gets confused and loses its ability to send appropriate instructions to our cells, tissues and organs for how to behave and function.

Recent research and innovation shows how respecting these daily rhythms can have a measurable impact on overall health and well-being. In 2017 three American scientists were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology/Medicine for their discovery of the molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm. Their research provided not only evidence that cells function differently depending on the time of day, but also provided an explanation, not previously known, for how this process happens on a cellular and genetic level.

Recent studies have highlighted how disruption of circadian rhythms have been associated with various sleep disorders, cancer, susceptibility to infections, metabolic syndrome, digestive issues, Alzheimer’s disease, and even accelerated aging.

Daily Challenge:

Be mindful of the eating, sleep and exercise patterns you follow on a daily basis. Keeping regular eating, sleeping and exercise times is one way to support a healthy circadian rhythm. The body and mind thrive on routines and consistency and experience less stress, strain and energy drain when there are stable consistent routines. Experiment and see for yourself!

Cheryl Block, Director & Founder of Healthy Inputs is Holistic Health Nurse, Ayurvedic Practitioner & Yoga Teacher that offers healthy lifestyle consults, counseling and coaching to help people optimize their health & well-being