Learn how to optimize around the best times to do things for the best results.

I’ve got rhythm. I didn’t use to, but I do now and it’s making a huge difference in my life.

I cannot dance, as my children gleefully point out. I’m not musical and can’t keep the beat. What I have connected with is the rhythm of life.

I believed that I was a night owl and that staying up late to study or work at the hospital was natural for me. I did not need regular sleep, and I certainly did not need eight hours a night. I could function quite adequately on six hours and could get by fine on four hours if I needed to. But performing adequately and getting by is not the same as functioning optimally and thriving.

I wasn’t listening to my body’s natural cycles, and it cost me. I put on weight, was frequently ill, suffered from chronic headaches and reflux, and experienced poor mood with frequent angry outbursts. It turns out these are all symptoms of chronic shift work.

We are all shift workers today.

I was suffering from being a shift worker, even though I did not have a night shift job. You may be suffering the same problems for the same reason. You see, we all have shift work jobs today, even if most of us don’t recognize that fact.

The European definition of shift work is staying awake for three or more hours between 10:00 pm and 5:00 am for more than 50 days in a year. Many of us do that without realizing it. You stay up late to get work done, take late calls, answer emails or watch the late shows to relax. Boom, you are living the life of a shift worker without the benefit of getting a paycheck.

Modern living has been an attempt to beat natural rhythms into submission. Artificial light turns night into day and allows us to keep working and playing long after the sun goes down. But our bodies have not adapted as fast as our technology. The result is a mismatch between how we behave and how our bodies function.

Circadian Rhythm: Fact or Fiction

I wondered if circadian rhythms were just a bunch of new-age crap like crystals, and I’m not sure what else. But an event in the news in 2017 made me take a second look. That was when Michale Rosbash, who looks like Patrick Stewart with glasses and a faint beard, shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with two others “for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.”

Three things to note; first, circadian rhythms are real. Second, those rhythms have a molecular basis in the cells of our body. And last, this was an important enough finding to justify a Nobel Prize. If the Nobel committee takes the topic this seriously, maybe we should all take a deeper look.

To learn more, I consulted the book The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight (Amazon) by leading researcher in circadian rhythms at the Salk Institute, Satchin Panda Ph.D. He got my attention when I read, “When it comes to achieving optimal health, it’s not about what you do — it’s about when you do it.” But could that be true, after all, aren’t there morning people and evening people? Is it realistic to expect everyone to conform to the same rhythm?

Night Owls vs. Early Birds

It turns out there may be no such thing as Night Owls and Early Birds. These distinctions are artificial lifestyles caused not by physiology but bad habits. Researcher Kenneth Wright led a camping trip with a group for dedicated Night Owls. After just a couple of days away from artificial light, the night owls found themselves feeling sleepy around 9:00 to 10:00 pm and waking early. Taken out of the synthetic setting, Night Owls turned into Morning Larks.

The differences in our sleep patterns are not the result of genetics as I used to think; it is the product of bad habits. And those bad habits can be harming you. That is because your body is programmed to do certain things at certain times. As Dr. Panda said in an interview with The Verge, “The bottom line is that almost every hormone, every brain chemical, every digestive enzyme and so on is pre-programmed to peak at a certain time of the day and then tap out at another time of the day. It’s an in-built schedule for different programs to do different things at the optimal time, and these timing mechanisms are the circadian rhythm.”

How to Take Advantage of Circadian Rhythms

So the question becomes, how do we best take advantage of our natural rhythms to improve our performance?

Your tomorrow is determined by what you do today.

“Your performance at any moment during the day is primarily determined by what you did the night before — when you ate and how much you slept — because that is what sets your clock, which then primes your body and brain,”

— Dr. Satchin Panda. The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight

The best way to have a promising tomorrow is to set a routine for the night before. As we saw with the night owls converted to morning larks, the key to getting to sleep on time is light. Artificial light gives your brain the illusion of daytime. A few keys to fixing this are to limit your exposure to light late in the day. Turn the lights down in the evening to simulate the setting of the sun. Mid-day light has a higher proportion of blue light, while light at the ends of the day is more orange. You can mimic this change indoors by using warm-colored bulbs in the lights you sit near at night. The sun at the ends of the day is also low on the horizon, so put those warm bulbs in lamps and turn off the overhead light. It sounds simplistic, but it works.

Aim to be in bed by 10:00 pm.

Going to bed by 10:00 pm fits in with your natural rhythm, even if you think it doesn’t. Getting to bed at ten allows you to sleep for eight hours and rise at 6:00 am without the need for an alarm clock. It may not seem like that is true if you are in the habit of staying up later, but after just a few days, you will find it to be true. So set a “sleep alarm” to remind you when to head to bed so you can be lights out by 10:00 pm. After a few days, you will find you no longer need a wake-up alarm.

Don’t eat late in the day.

All the organ systems of the body have their innate rhythm. Your digestive system is no exception. Digestion slows down at night. That means food in your stomach tends to sit there while you sleep. Also, your salivary glands stop making saliva. The lack of saliva is good if you don’t want to drool on your pillow, but it is terrible if you have a full stomach. That’s because saliva helps buffer stomach acid and protects the esophagus. The result is acid reflux that can disrupt sleep. So avoid eating within 2 to 4 hours of bedtime.

When is the best time for creative work?

According to Dr. Panda, “Your optimal brain function is highest between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm; that’s when you should notice that your best work or learning is done.” Your brain’s peak performance starts at 10:00 am and peaks around noon. Your attention, working memory, problem-solving, and mood are at their highest levels during those hours. From noon onward, your brain slows.

To take advantage of your most productive hours, don’t schedule a long lunch or meeting during the time from 10 to 3. On the other hand, a brief lunch break can be a performance enhancer giving your brain a brief respite while boosting your energy. Late in the day, your brain gets tired, and you find it harder to concentrate, so don’t put off your most important task. Instead, set aside uninterrupted time starting at 10 am to focus on your most important and demanding work.

Also, note that you only get about 5 to 6 hours per day of good performance from your brain. That is it. Continuing to push yourself is a game of diminishing returns; you put in more time but accomplish less. It is often better to put off those tasks until the next day so you can get the rest you need to be maximally productive during the limited hours of peak performance your brain offers.

When to exercise?

There are two times when it is best to exercise. First thing in the morning offers advantages if you do your exercising outdoors. The sunlight will help to reset your clock and keep in sync with your circadian rhythm. This does not have to be a full workout; a simple stroll in the sun will suffice. The best time for morning exercise is between 30 minutes before sunrise to two hours after. The light will activate your brain while the activity invigorates your body. The result is better performance during the day and more restful sleep at night.

Late afternoon is the next ideal time for exercise. Brain activity drops off after 3 pm; however, the book quotes multiple studies that show motor coordination and strength peak in the late afternoon. This makes the time from 3 pm to dinner an ideal time to be physically active. But wait, that’s not all. Exercise is a known appetite suppressant, so afternoon exercise helps reduce hunger at dinner time, so you eat less. And exercise will preferentially divert those calories you consume to your muscles which is beneficial because insulin levels decline later in the day. As little as 15 minutes of evening exercise can be enough to keep your blood glucose level in a healthy range.

When to eat?

“it’s not only how much we eat and what we eat, but when we eat that matters, especially for long-term positive health outcomes.”

— Dr. Satchin Panda. The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight

Regardless of the diet you follow, research suggests that when you eat may be more important than what you eat. That is why Dr. Panda recommends Time Restricted Eating (TRE), where eating is limited to a specific time of the day. It turns out that if you eat for 15 hours of the day or longer, your body acts as if you are eating all day. That is not good for fat burning, which generally occurs 6 to 8 hours after your last meal and increases exponentially after 12 hours. To burn fat, it makes sense to restrict eating to 12 hours a day or less.

For weight loss, eating should be restricted to an 8 to 9-hour window during the day. While for maintenance of weight, it is best to eat in an 11 to 12-hour window. The one thing you do not want to do is to eat late in the day. So start early with a good breakfast. Insulin response is better in the first half of the day and worst in the evening. Eating a good breakfast takes advantage of your insulin response and limits consumption later in the day when your response is less robust.

You can figure out a schedule by determining how many hours you plan to eat in the day (8 to 9 for weight loss or 11 to 12 for maintenance). Start by deciding when you plan to go to bed. It’s best if you do not eat within 3 to 4 hours of bedtime, so do the math and work backward. If you plan to go to bed at 10:00 pm, don’t plan to eat after 7:00 pm. Then calculate when you should start eating. If you are trying to lose weight, start eating at 10:00 or 11:00 am. If you want to maintain your current weight, you can have breakfast as soon as 7:00 am.

Remember, the key is to stop eating on schedule. That means no snacks, desserts, or alcohol after your set time to stop eating. Because when you stop eating is more important than when you start.

Life on the farm was a life of rhythm.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of time on my Grandfather’s farm. It was during that time that I lived a life governed by rhythm. We rose each morning before dawn to a full breakfast of ham and eggs so we could be out and working as the sun rose. Feeding livestock and working in the field filled the morning with one break for coffee. In the afternoon, we ate our big meal of the day while listening to the farmers’ markets on the radio.

After lunch was nap time. Rather than work in the hottest part of the day, we napped by laying blankets on the dining room floor. We returned to work in the mid-afternoon and continued with our “chores” until the sun got low. With no artificial light on our equipment, we needed to have everything completed before sunset.

Our “dinner” was a light meal that usually consisted of cold-cut sandwiches followed by a bit of ice cream. Then we read books or the newspaper and engaged in other quiet games or actives. We headed to bed at 9 pm so we could rise early and do it again.

It was a good life. The work was hard, and I was tired at the end of the day, but I remember feeling alive and rested each morning. I felt good, and I was healthy. It was probably the most beneficial lifestyle I ever enjoyed.

Now I realize that what we were doing was living by a natural rhythm. As a farmer, it makes sense that my Grandfather lived in harmony with nature. You wake with the sun and go to sleep with the sun. You don’t fight against the hottest part of the day; instead, you nap under the dining room table. You eat your big meals before working so you have the energy you need, and you eat a light meal late in the day so it won’t interfere with your sleep. Then you sleep well and spontaneously wake in the morning ready to do it again.

Dr. Panda helped me to realize that the genius behind life on the farm was how it worked with our natural rhythms. But it’s not just that it makes us feel more awake and energetic. My farming relatives, who followed a similar schedule, stayed active and healthy into their 80’s. Perhaps their health was also the result of living in harmony with their circadian rhythms. As Dr. Panda says in the introduction to The Circadian Code, “We now know that to have predictable circadian rhythms is to have healthy organs. Just like a mutation in the genetic code can lead to disease, living in opposition to the circadian code can push us toward disease.”

Summary

When to go to bed 10:00 pm, because a good day starts the night before.

When to wake 6:00 am

When to take a morning stroll, between 30 before sunrise to two hours after.

When to do your most important work, in the morning starting at 10:00.

When to exercise, between 3:00 and dinner.

When to stop eating, 3 to 4 hours before bed.

When to eat for weight loss, 8 to 9 hours per day.

When to eat to maintain your weight, 11 to 12 hours per day.