Naturally early risers, or morning ‘larks,’ do best when they can wake up early and sleep early. ![]() People whose lives are synchronized with their body clock signals are less fatigued, have better moods, maintain healthier weights, gain more benefit from their medications, think more clearly, and have improved long-term health outcomes, said neuroscientist Russell Foster, who heads the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University in the UK. When we've been awake for a long time, our sleep drive kicks in and tells us we need to sleep. The loop for sleep balances the ‘sleep drive’ with the need to be awake. One circadian loop: We are genetically programmed to be hungrier in the evening, which helps us load up on calories before the overnight fast, and less hungry early in the morning, so we can use our energy reserves to go out and hunt for our next meal. These ‘molecular clocks’ in our brain and in every cell modulate our body systems, including hormones, blood pressure, blood glucose and body temperature. In 1959, physician Franz Halberg was the first to document our roughly 24-hour self-regulating systems – that he called circadian rhythms – from the Latin words for ‘about’ and ‘day.’ In 2017, three scientists won a Nobel Prize for showing that humans have a network of timekeeping genes and proteins with daily cycles of rest and activity. So our genes prepared us to be active in daylight and rest after nightfall. For millions of years, humans have experienced a consistent pattern of light exposure, with minimal day-to-day variability in the timing of sunset and sunrise.
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