Setting your Body’s Clock to Good Health

There is no end to wonder within and around us. All one needs is the heart and mind to see things with awe. The significance of intricate systems and subsystems then start to unfold. Awe enables significance.

Consider for instance how intertwined we are to nature around us. Like the millions of processes going on within the body, nature too continues to play a vast orchestra ceaselessly. And those who attune their own orchestra to this grand symphony can actually be living healthier.

Research says we all have a biological clock in each cell of our body. And it is synchronized with the master clock in the brain in an area called the hypothalamus. This master clock runs on a daily cycle which takes its cues from the environment and particularly daylight.

So people who align their wakefulness and sleep patterns to the day-night cycle show a consistency in physiological behavior like hunger, thirst, bowel movement and sex. Over a period of time, this consistency contributes to alertness, higher work productivity, hormonal balance and even slows the process of aging.

For instance, the hormone melatonin is secreted by the body taking darkness as a cue. Which is why humans (and a majority of other plants and animals) naturally tend to fall asleep when it is dark. So irregular melatonin secretion in case of excessive night time activity and day time sleeping can adversely affect an individual’s fertility among other things.

If an individual is removed from environment’s cues such as daylight, the body runs on its own biological clock. So the person will continue to eat and sleep in a cycle but the biological clock in his brain would slowly drift out of phase from the natural daylight cycle. This phase is called free running and over a period of time this contributes to aging and problems associated with it. As we grow older, the various biological clocks from the lungs, liver or esophagus become less synchronized to the master clock in the brain and this is why the older we get, the more essential it is to align our body clocks to day-night cycle so as to maintain good health.

The best way to synchronize our own biological clock with external cycles is by doing these:

• Use electricity in the evening sparingly
• Avoiding bed time reading
• Not shielding windows with heavy curtains and blinds that bar natural light
• Exercising in the morning
• Taking short power naps post noon to regain vigor
• Taking a light supper (mostly proteins) a few hours before sleeping at night
• Taking a carbohydrate rich breakfast early in the morning

References:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm
http://www.thehormoneshop.com/biologicalclocks.htm
http://www.glimmerveen.nl/le/biological_clock.html

photo credit: Roby Ferrari