circadian rhythms | Wellness Secrets of a SuperAger

We are all going to be springing forward Sunday morning as we set our clocks ahead one hour. But, is that an innocent action as far as our body is concerned? WebMd has some useful tips on the temporal alteration.

The daylight-saving time change will force most of us to spring forward and advance our clocks one hour. This effectively moves an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening, giving us those long summer nights. But waking up Monday morning may not be so easy, having lost an hour of precious sleep and perhaps driving to work in the dark with an extra jolt of java. How time changes actually affect you depends on your own personal health, sleep habits, and lifestyle.

white rabbit holding gold frame pocket watch statue

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Moving our clocks in either direction changes the principal time cue — light — for setting and resetting our 24-hour natural cycle, or circadian rhythm. In doing so, our internal clock becomes out of sync or mismatched with our current day-night cycle. How well we adapt to this depends on several things.

In general, “losing” an hour in the spring is more difficult to adjust to than “gaining” an hour in the fall. It is similar to airplane travel; traveling east we lose time. An “earlier” bedtime may cause difficulty falling asleep and increased wakefulness during the early part of the night. Going west, we fall asleep easily but may have a difficult time waking.

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Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, Ben Franklin. famously said. If that man gets himself outside in the early morning sun, he may also enjoy other substantially healthy benefits.

I was excited to learn that while I am out riding in the early morning sun, I will be enjoying some other very healthy benefits.

Dr. Phyllis Zee and other researchers from Northwestern Memorial’s Feinberg School of Medicine recently published a study showing in effect that morning sunlight makes you healthier.

According to the study “Light exposure can influence sleep and circadian timing, both of which have been shown to influence weight regulation.”

The early morning sun affects hormones that regulate appetite and neurotransmitters that regulate the sleep/wake cycle.

The early morning bright lights also wake us and lift our mood which may prompt us to make healthier decisions through the rest of the day.

The study included 54 people for an entire week. Those who spent more time in early morning sunlight were leaner than the ones who got their light exposure later in the day.

Dr. Zee said that the early morning light has more blue which is a more powerful stimulus for your brain. This compares with the red and orange light that we tend to get later in the afternoon.

In case you didn’t know, blue light is melatonin-suppressant. Melatonin is the hormone that starts to put us to sleep. If it is suppressed, we don’t feel as tired and will not fall asleep very easily.

So get out there and get some of those early morning rays. You will start your day on a positive note and feel better the rest of the day.

On the other end of the time spectrum, I have recently learned that TV screens, iPads and computers emit a lot of blue light. That is why working on your computer just before going to bed can make it more difficult to fall asleep. I wear blue blocker sunglasses when I work on my computer late to keep it from interfering with my falling asleep. They seem to work.

Tony