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How to sleep better and live longer - just by re-setting your body clock!
Unravelling the secret of how germs cause disease was the ground-breaking health development of the past century, leading to major advances in sanitation, vaccination and anti-biotics that, in turn, led to the most dramatic rise in longevity in any century in human history.
Yet living longer does not always mean living healthier. In fact, we are now witnessing a rapid increase in chronic diseases of both the mind and the body.
Today, almost one-third of adults suffer from at least one chronic disease, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma or high blood pressure.
There has also been a rise in the incidence of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
But now, the tiny field of circadian biology — the study of the human body clock — is radically changing the way we understand how both the body and the mind function, promising to provide the next revolution in healthcare.
We now know that our organs, indeed every cell in our bodies, contain internal clocks which are programmed to turn on or off thousands of genes at different times of the day or night.
These internal clocks prepare us for everything from waking up long before we’re aware of it (producing stress hormones to help us get through the morning routine), to priming the pancreas to release insulin to handle breakfast and dropping our body temperature and blood pressure when sleeping (in order to conserve energy for other functions, such as repairing and restoring cells).
Quite literally, these genes and their circadian rhythm (which recurs naturally on a 24-hour cycle) influence every aspect of our lives.
When they are in sync, they do the jobs they are supposed to do and our bodies run smoothly.
Yet when these daily rhythms are disturbed, our clocks cannot send out the right messages to these genes and our body and mind will not function as well as we need. And poor sleep is a major culprit.
Worryingly, this disruption affects far more of us than you would think.
For while you’d rightly assume that those who wake up in the middle of the night to work, return from work late or who stay awake at night would be the obvious sufferers from poor sleep (and, therefore, ill health), the truth is we’re all now effectively shift workers. And it only takes a few nights’ poor sleep for things to start to go wrong.
How many of us pull an all-nighter at college or work, stay up late studying or socialising, have a bad night’s sleep, travel across several time zones or wake up a few times to feed and change a baby? Well then you, too, are a shift worker.
Even something seemingly banal, such as following different bedtime schedules on weekdays and weekends, can lead to insufficient sleep.
The effect is instant. We all know how it feels the day after a particularly rough night. You feel sleepy, but can’t sleep. Your stomach may feel upset, your muscles weak, your mind foggy and you certainly aren’t in the mood to hit the gym. As a result, you may reach for a strong coffee or energy drink.
Just a few days of reduced sleep can change our appetite.
We are prone to eat more calorie-dense junk food late at night when our stomach is meant to rest and repair.
When this occurs repeatedly, every system in your body starts to malfunction — even our immune system has a circadian component — resulting in us succumbing to illnesses from insomnia to depression, migraine, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and even cancer. It can also make recovery more difficult.
So what can be done? The goal is twofold. First, to adjust our activities to the optimal times of the day that are most in sync with our clocks. We want to eat when our bodies metabolise foods most efficiently, and we want to be active when our brain and body are functioning at their peak levels.
Words above from article here
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/mindandbody/how-to-sleep-better-and-live-longer-just-by-re-setting-your-body-clock/ar-AAxWJ3H?ocid=spartanntp
All the best Jan
Unravelling the secret of how germs cause disease was the ground-breaking health development of the past century, leading to major advances in sanitation, vaccination and anti-biotics that, in turn, led to the most dramatic rise in longevity in any century in human history.
Yet living longer does not always mean living healthier. In fact, we are now witnessing a rapid increase in chronic diseases of both the mind and the body.
Today, almost one-third of adults suffer from at least one chronic disease, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma or high blood pressure.
There has also been a rise in the incidence of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
But now, the tiny field of circadian biology — the study of the human body clock — is radically changing the way we understand how both the body and the mind function, promising to provide the next revolution in healthcare.
We now know that our organs, indeed every cell in our bodies, contain internal clocks which are programmed to turn on or off thousands of genes at different times of the day or night.
These internal clocks prepare us for everything from waking up long before we’re aware of it (producing stress hormones to help us get through the morning routine), to priming the pancreas to release insulin to handle breakfast and dropping our body temperature and blood pressure when sleeping (in order to conserve energy for other functions, such as repairing and restoring cells).
Quite literally, these genes and their circadian rhythm (which recurs naturally on a 24-hour cycle) influence every aspect of our lives.
When they are in sync, they do the jobs they are supposed to do and our bodies run smoothly.
Yet when these daily rhythms are disturbed, our clocks cannot send out the right messages to these genes and our body and mind will not function as well as we need. And poor sleep is a major culprit.
Worryingly, this disruption affects far more of us than you would think.
For while you’d rightly assume that those who wake up in the middle of the night to work, return from work late or who stay awake at night would be the obvious sufferers from poor sleep (and, therefore, ill health), the truth is we’re all now effectively shift workers. And it only takes a few nights’ poor sleep for things to start to go wrong.
How many of us pull an all-nighter at college or work, stay up late studying or socialising, have a bad night’s sleep, travel across several time zones or wake up a few times to feed and change a baby? Well then you, too, are a shift worker.
Even something seemingly banal, such as following different bedtime schedules on weekdays and weekends, can lead to insufficient sleep.
The effect is instant. We all know how it feels the day after a particularly rough night. You feel sleepy, but can’t sleep. Your stomach may feel upset, your muscles weak, your mind foggy and you certainly aren’t in the mood to hit the gym. As a result, you may reach for a strong coffee or energy drink.
Just a few days of reduced sleep can change our appetite.
We are prone to eat more calorie-dense junk food late at night when our stomach is meant to rest and repair.
When this occurs repeatedly, every system in your body starts to malfunction — even our immune system has a circadian component — resulting in us succumbing to illnesses from insomnia to depression, migraine, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and even cancer. It can also make recovery more difficult.
So what can be done? The goal is twofold. First, to adjust our activities to the optimal times of the day that are most in sync with our clocks. We want to eat when our bodies metabolise foods most efficiently, and we want to be active when our brain and body are functioning at their peak levels.
Words above from article here
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/mindandbody/how-to-sleep-better-and-live-longer-just-by-re-setting-your-body-clock/ar-AAxWJ3H?ocid=spartanntp
All the best Jan
