In the previous blog we saw that the circadian rhythm, our cycle of about 24 hours, allows for much more than just sleeping and waking.
The suprachiasmatic nucleus is the central clock in our brain, which, like a conductor directs an orchestra, regulates all peripheral clocks in all kinds of organs and cells.
Our circadian clock is influenced by environmental factors, such as light and times when we drink, eat and are active. With these factors we can disrupt our rhythm, which can lead to health problems. Or we use them to reset our internal clock. We can also support our body and mind with our lifestyle in maintaining the right rhythm.
Reset your circadian rhythm
How do you reset a disrupted clock? You can restore your circadian clock by going camping! Not with a luxury camper or caravan with beautiful lighting and a built-in TV, but nice and basic with a tent. Live with the sunlight.
We have just been on holiday with the tent ourselves and despite the long days around this time of year, I noticed that I was getting really sleepy around 9 o'clock. Once in the sleeping bag, all four of us fell asleep quickly. Unfortunately we can't always camp….
So how do you restore a disrupted circadian rhythm? Or how do you maintain a correctly adjusted clock? What can you do with lifestyle to have a circadian rhythm that is in sync with real time? A LOT!
The main environmental factors that drive our circadian rhythm are light, the times we eat, and activity (and inactivity, sleep). I give you many practical tips on how you can support your internal clock in a positive way with these three elements.
Time Restricted Eating
The day-night rhythm also determines our metabolism. The pancreas, which produces digestive juices and insulin, is more active during the day than at night. Eating late can therefore lead to fluctuations in glucose levels more quickly than during the day. Spikes and dips in the blood glucose level can disrupt sleep.
Eating late or at night has been associated with obesity and weight control problems in many scientific studies. Individuals who eat the bulk of their food at breakfast and lunch lose more weight than those who eat a small breakfast and eat the most calories at dinner, even though both groups consume the same amount of calories.
"Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper" is therefore a good guideline. Make your breakfast the most important meal of the day. And make sure you eat enough food early in the day. Dinner then becomes a light meal. This way you cooperate with your biorhythm and limit the risk of health problems that eating or snacking late in the evening entails.
For many people, their mouth is open as long as their eyes are open. That is, one eats at all times of their waking time. Does that also apply to you and do you want to improve this? Shorten the time in a day that you eat. This is also known as Time Restricted Eating or Intermittent Fasting. Try to eat everything you eat in a day within 8 to a maximum of 12 hours. This is not about eating fewer calories, but about eating in less hours and therefore fasting for a period of 12 hours or more per day. If you now eat 15 hours a day, then a step to eating 8 hours a day may be too big, but try to see what effect eating 12 hours has on your well-being.
Time Restricted Eating or Intermittent Fasting can help
- the lowering of
o weight
o cholesterol level
o blood pressure
o glucose and HbA1c (longer term glucose regulation)
o body fat
- and improving
o sleep quality
o alertness
o endurance
Drinking water does not count for Time Restricted Eating. You can drink water outside of the times you set for eating. Plan to drink between meals and preferably do not drink while eating. Drink enough during the day and limit drinking before bed so that it does not disturb your night's sleep.
Sunlight
Sunlight is the most important natural signal to tune our circadian clock. When it gets dark at night, this is a signal for the body to produce melatonin, the sleep hormone. Bright morning light is a sign to wake up, be alert and active.
To restore or support your circadian rhythm, it is advisable to expose yourself to bright light shortly after waking up. This can be done by going outside or sitting in close to the window. At times of the year when it is still dark when you get up, you can use a daylight lamp with 10,000 lux or light therapy glasses that achieve the same effect with blue light and 135 lux.
For the optimal effect, I recommend being in the light within 10 to 30 minutes after waking up and preferably between 6 and 7 am. Every day at the same time. A session of light therapy lasts 20-60 minutes.
Light therapy with sunlight or by means of a lamp or glasses stimulates those special light-sensitive cells on the retina in the eyes: photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. When these cells are activated, they send a signal to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the area in the hypothalamus of the brain, to suppress the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. It also stimulates the production of serotonin, the happiness hormone. Sufficient serotonin during the day is important, because it is necessary to produce enough melatonin in the evening.
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The best time to exercise
Exercise is an important part of good sleep hygiene and therefore also for your circadian rhythm. Exercise has been shown to improve sleep quality and duration. Despite the obvious benefits of exercise for sleep and circadian rhythm, there is an ongoing debate about the best time of day to exercise for optimal sleep. The best time of day to exercise so that it is the best for improving your sleep is difficult to say, because it depends on many factors.
Exercise in the morning or afternoon
Moderate to intensive exercise in the morning or afternoon stimulates the earlier release of melatonin and advances the sleep-wake rhythm. It is also an important mechanism for maintaining and improving brain function. Exercise will not only improve your mood for the rest of the day, but it will also boost the production of new brain cells and your ability to make new connections for learning and better memory.
It doesn't matter if you wait until sunrise to start your morning workout. You can start from 30 minutes before to 2 hours after sunrise; the most important thing is to get some exposure to bright (sun)light.
If you train indoors in a gym or at home, find a spot next to a large window or under bright light. This helps stabilize the circadian rhythm and makes it easier to fall asleep early.
Exercise in the evening
As long as exercise ends at least 90 minutes before bedtime, moderate-intensity exercise in the evening has no adverse effect on sleep for most people. Your body then has enough time for endorphin levels and core body temperature to return to levels conducive to sleep.
In preparation for sleep, body temperature drops, heart rate slows, and brain waves slow down. Exercise, on the other hand, leads to the reverse, which can hinder sleep. This was the reason experts advised against exercising before bed in the past.
However, studies have shown that evening exercise may not have such a negative impact. It may even increase the proportion of restorative deep sleep.
Exercise helps reduce anxiety and depression and helps relax the mind in preparation for sleep. It also causes a sharp rise in body temperature followed by a gradual cooling, which mimics the natural fluctuations of the circadian rhythm and paves the way for sleep. Multiple studies have shown that evening workouts improve sleep quality by helping people fall asleep faster, improve sleep throughput, and increase time spent in deep sleep.
You may need to experiment to find a workout time that works for you. If you have trouble sleeping after exercising in the morning, try moving your workouts till later in the day. If you have trouble sleeping after exercising at night, scheduling your workouts earlier in the day may help.
Green exercise
The time of day you exercise affects your circadian rhythm, but WHERE you exercise can also make a difference.
For people who exercise outdoors, a morning workout can have the added benefit of exposure to sunlight. A brisk walk or daylight outdoor activity is an excellent way to synchronize the brain clock.
With exercising or walking outside in nature, also known as green exercise, you kill several birds with one stone. You are in the bright daylight, moving your body and getting fresh air. People who are active outside in a green environment, even if it's only for a short time, scientific research indicates that they are more satisfied with life and experience a better quality of life.
Several studies also show that green exercise:
- reduces stress,
- reduces depressive symptoms,
- anxiety decreases,
- self-confidence, self-esteem improves an
- mood improves.
Temperance
Caffeine
Caffeine is widely used to wake up or stay awake. The negative influence of coffee and other caffeinated drinks, such as tea, cola and energy drinks, on sleep is well known. While there may be individual differences, research shows that caffeine affects many areas of sleep. Such as, among other things, the duration, quality, depth of sleep.
Even a cup of coffee drunk six hours before bedtime still has a negative effect, because caffeine has a half-life of six hours. So the cup of coffee that is drunk at 4 pm is still half active at 10 pm.
And caffeine that is drunk three hours before bedtime ensures, among other things, that the melatonin peak, which helps you fall asleep, is delayed by about 40 minutes.
Would you rather stop your caffeine intake completely, but are you looking for a natural pick-me-up in the morning? Taking a cold shower at the end of your shower when you get up, stimulates the body and wakes you up well. This has an effect that is comparable to a cup of coffee or tea.
Alcohol
Unlike caffeine, an alcoholic drink has a reputation for helping you sleep. Healthy people who drink alcohol once in a while fall asleep faster. However, this is not an argument to justify alcohol consumption, because if you look at the quality of sleep over the entire night, you will see that it is worse than without alcohol. And the more people drink, the more sleeping problems there are.
Nicotine
Smoking disrupts circadian clock function in both the lungs and brain, ruining productive sleep and leading to cognitive impairment, mood disorders, depression and anxiety, according to new research.
Medication and supplements
There are many medicins, supplements and drugs that affect alertness and sleep. Now it goes too far to say much about it in this blog. In some situations, medication or a supplement can be helpful, but usually it's not a long-term solution. If you have sleeping problems, where the components of a healthy lifestyle, as we discuss here, do not have sufficient effect, I recommend that you discuss this with a doctor or another healthcare professional.
Screen usage
It is wise to avoid bright and/or blue light in the hours before bedtime. It is also better not to use the blue light waves from screens, such as television, laptop or mobile phone. These make it more difficult to fall asleep by suppressing the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.
If you still have to use screens at night, for example for work, you can install a blue light filter app on your device to limit exposure to blue light waves.
Sleep
Napping
Naps can be very good for your health. But if you take an afternoon nap, keep it short and don't sleep past 4 p.m.
If you sleep for more than an hour, you reach a deeper level of sleep. Having to wake up from that leaves you feeling groggy rather than refreshed. In addition, it can disrupt your sleep at night. A nap earlier in the day can advance your sleep-wake rhythm. Taking a nap late in the day can shift your night's sleep to later.
We have already discussed many aspects of good sleep: exercising, going outside in the daylight, do not drink too much (water, tea) in the evening, so that your night's sleep is not disturbed by visits to the bathroom. Avoid stimulants such as caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, limit bright and blue light in the evening (screens) and also limit naps.
There are a few more important facets of good sleep hygiene.
Fixed times
If you want to reset your circadian clock, it is important to always go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time. Once you are well into the rhythm, you can be a little more flexible, but regularity remains important. Preferably deviate no more than an hour from your normal times of going to bed and getting up.
What is the ideal bedtime? That is different per person. Be sure to sleep before midnight. It's even better to have a sleep cycle of 90 minutes before midnight. The time you have to get up also determines your bedtime. Count on an adult needing seven to nine hours of sleep.
Darkness
Exposure to light while sleeping at night is related to depression and negatively impacts heart function and the way your body responds to insulin the next day. This is because the body remains in a state of alertness due to the light triggering the autonomic nervous system.
Close blackout curtains and/or use an eye mask. Do you want a light on at night? Make sure it is a small light, that it is low to the ground and that it is a warm color light. A salt lamp is suitable for this.
Temperature and ventilation
Our body temperature naturally drops in the evening. For a good night's sleep it is important that the bedroom is cool.
During the day it is good for your health to sufficiently ventilate the house or room you are staying in. At night it is part of good sleep hygiene to sleep with the windows open.
Bedding
Provide clean, breathable bedding, preferably made from natural materials. This regulates your body temperature and absorbs moisture.
Immediately replace a mattress or pillow that contains mold.
A mattress or pillow must provide the right support to prevent or limit back or neck pain, or headaches. So also replace your pillow or mattress if it has collapsed.
Routine
Keep your bedroom tidy and decorations minimal. This is easy to keep clean and gives less stimuli.
Use the bedroom for sleeping, not for watching TV, work, and the like. Also leave the smartphone outside the bedroom. Using the smartphone disturbs sleep quality. It causes a state of both physical and psychological turmoil. Physically, by raising your cortisol (a stress hormone) and body temperature and slowing melatonin production, and psychologically, by contributing to anxiety and depressed moods.
Have a relaxed evening routine. This is especially important if you want to reset your circadian rhythm and/or if you have trouble sleeping. Avoid alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, screen use. What can you do then? In the summer you can take a walk in the evening. Drink relaxing herbal tea. Take a warm bath (not too hot!). Read a book or your Bible.
A regular routine also helps. With that you train yourself, you teach yourself fixed habits that tells you 'now it's time to rest'. Not only rest in the sense of sleeping, but also calmness in your head. This brings us to the last part.
Trust in God
Reduce stress. Stress cannot be avoided 100%. Everyone experiences stressful situations to some degree. It's up to us how we deal with it. A relationship of trust with God is important in this.
It is God's will that we experience rest and be cheerful. So what does He say about joy? How, then, according to His Word, can we get true joy? “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy.” Psalm 16:11. With God at my right hand, "my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope." Psalm 16:9. And Solomon says in Proverbs 17:22, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."
Gratitude leads to more positive emotions. Grateful people are more optimistic and experience more joy and happiness.
Gratitude not only has beneficial effects on our psychosocial well-being, but also on our physical health. It improves the quality of sleep: people with a grateful attitude sleep longer and feel more rested when they get up. They also suffer less from aches and pains, a stronger immune system and lower blood pressure.
As part of the evening routine, it is therefore good to reflect on what you are grateful for. If possible, write it in a gratitude journal.
David wrote an evening song about this. We can find this in Psalm 4. David closes the day with prayer, in which he declares that he trusts God and is happy and thankful.
Psalms 4:4, 7-8: "4. Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.
8. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety."
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