7 hours Ago By Amy Denney
Chances are you’ve used a zeitgeber recently, even if you’ve never heard the word. Zeitgebers could be useful tools in the coming days when most of us set our clocks back an hour as we “fall back” to standard time. We could use that “bonus” hour to run errands, catch up on email, watch a favorite show, or—if we can—stay in bed and snooze.
“A lot of people—not just patients but also their physicians—don’t recognize circadian rhythm problems,” Dr. Sally Ibrahim, sleep specialist and associate professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, told The Epoch Times. “Daylight savings time gets it on people’s radars that we have these clocks in our bodies, and what we do every day will train our internal rhythm.
” Being hungry at irregular times Broken sleep or insomnia Restless leg syndrome Problems concentrating Mood disturbances “We can retrain our bodies to signal us differently,” she said. “If I could have a boot camp for people with circadian rhythm disorders, I’d do it.” “Entrain” is another word in the vernacular of sleep specialists.
Essentially, it means that when you vary the rhythm of something, you will gradually synchronize with it. Entraining is an easy—not to mention free—solution for biological problems related to sleep or other rhythms that most of us have experienced at one time or another. Viewing early morning light and as much light as possible throughout the day can help with small circadian rhythm misalignments, like one-hour time changes.
Those who work indoors with no natural light are likely to have “dampened” circadian rhythms, Ibrahim said. Living in a place that doesn’t have bright or longer days can also impact your biological clock. “If they’re eating at noon and then again at 6 p.
m. and now they’re hungry again at 11 or 12 a.m.
, you can see that their clock is thinking noon is wakeup time, and 6 p.m. is noon,” Ibrahim said.
“We can easily use food to entrain our rhythm.” The power mealtimes can have over circadian rhythm might even improve the health of shift workers. Josiane Broussard, associate professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University, is currently putting this to the test in her lab.
Subjects stay awake at night to simulate night shift work but eat at normal meal times—rather than in alignment with a work schedule. Researchers are monitoring their blood glucose levels, in addition to testing memory, performance, and cognition to see if meal timing could mitigate expected health harms from shift work. Caffeine, alcohol, and melatonin supplements are all zeitgebers, too.
However, experts warn that these synthetic signals can be habit-forming and even addicting. From a nutritional standpoint, avoid caffeine—because it’s a stimulant, registered dietitian Lena Bakovic with Top Nutrition Coaching told The Epoch Times. Doing so may be the only strategy needed to adjust circadian rhythm, though it’s often overlooked.
“Generally speaking, in a normal circadian rhythm, adenosine levels increase as the day progresses so as bedtime approaches, it induces rest. Other neurotransmitters released by caffeine consumption, norepinephrine and dopamine, can also function to increase wakefulness,” she said. “Some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others, but for most of us eliminating caffeine at least six hours before bedtime is a good rule of thumb,” she added.
“Additionally, consuming a large meal or eating close to bedtime can also negatively impact healthy sleep. I usually recommend eating three to four hours before bed to allow sufficient time for digestion while helping with feeling satisfied and preventing hunger.” In the same way, the autumn time change is less harmful to our bodies and brains than daylight savings time in March, when we “spring forward” an hour until November.
Most people think that’s because we get a “bonus” hour. However, that’s just a partial explanation, according to Broussard. “The fall is less disruptive because the human circadian system is slightly longer on average than 24 hours.
It’s a little more in line with our physiology to get the extra hour and sleep a little bit more. Whereas in the spring, it’s associated with more sleep restriction,” she stated. Traveling through one time zone doesn’t typically have a big impact on our biology.
Similarly, daylight savings shifts twice a year aren’t problematic for most healthy people, Broussard said. The bigger issue, she said, is the cumulative impact on our biology from switching out of standard time. “When we are in daylight savings time, it is offset from the natural physiology of our body.
We have light later at night, and we’re potentially out, active, and eating when our body is more geared to sleep and associated behaviors,” Broussard said. The amassed effect of shifting in and out of standard time is harder to quantify than the few days around the time change, where associations are more clear, she said. “For a normal healthy person, you can adapt to a shift that’s that small twice a year.
It’s not like going to Australia twice a month,” Broussard said..
