As the clocks change this weekend, apparently along with the weather, I thought it would be a good time to write about daylight and circadian rhythm.
While it is much easier to not bother going outside when the days are shorter and the weather is less than inviting, it is still well worth making the effort, because even when the weather is miserable, it is significantly brighter outside than it is inside – so you’re still getting that all important serotonin hit.
They say that a good night’s sleep starts the minute you get out of bed in the morning, and that’s because when you get a hit of serotonin from the daylight in the morning, you’re ‘pre-loading’ a hit of melatonin at bedtime too.
The minimum shown effective is 30 minutes of daylight before noon. This can be cumulative if necessary.
But, light isn’t the only way we maintain our circadian rhythm.
Whenever I talk about this, I’m reminded of one particular client.
She didn’t have a set daily routine with her work hours, and worked in a super brightly lit environment. So, her sleep quality wasn’t great, and she was exhausted all the time despite the large number of hours she spent sleeping.
This was making reaching her other, perhaps ‘main’, goals difficult.
So, we worked on improving her circadian rhythm by getting her light and dark cycles as regular as we were able to, and also used other ways to send her body signals too.
We got her sleep into as much of a routine as we could, and she went to bed and got up in as regular of a routine as we could manage.
Meal timing was another important thing to put into place. We brought her meals into the same 60 minute time slot every day.
Do you know that our bodies actually release hormones in anticipation of a meal?
Have you ever intentionally skipped a meal and noticed how hungry you are around the time your meal was due, but then a couple of hours later you’ve forgotten all about it?
And so, by giving her body the best signals we could, the changes were fantastic, and this lady now sleeps well and has pretty consistent energy. And, these changes unlocked the door to her heading towards her main goals too.
How’s your circadian rhythm?