What Is Your Circadian Rhythm and Why Is It Important?
Picture this: It’s summer, the sun's out longer, and you're watching a movie. After the movie ends you have no desire to go to bed, so you watch another one. The bright screen light follows you into the late of night, and when finally you remember that you do actually have work in the morning, it’s well past your normal bedtime. You can’t go to sleep. You toss and you turn and your mind can’t seem to stop going a hundred miles an hour.
Finally, you fall asleep, or at least a semblance of sleep. You definitely don’t hit any sort of REM and seem to constantly be waking back up. All of a sudden the bed that you personally picked out for its comfort level is uncomfortable and you’re too hot. It’s not until the early hours of the morning that you seem to actually fall asleep, but then you oversleep.
You don’t have time for your morning walk and the only morning sun you get is through your windshield on your mad dash to work. After work, you get home and can’t help but take a nap. By the time bedtime comes around, you are still tired and are sure that sleep will claim you easily with the type of day you’ve had, but it doesn’t. Something is still off.
What happened? Well it seems that your circadian rhythm is off. Cool, what does that mean?
Glad you asked! Your circadian rhythm is your body's internal clock and affects things like sleep and digestion. Essentially it tells you when to go to bed, get up, and when to eat. It can also be thrown off.
Your circadian rhythm is a biological clock located in your brain's suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). At night it tells your body to create melatonin and slows down the production in the morning.
Things that negatively affect your your circadian rhythm:
- Blue light late at night
- Late dinner
- Having alcohol before bed
- Lack of sunlight
Steps to take to help your circadian rhythm:
- Have set time you go to bed and wake up.
- Instead of looking at a screen before bed, read a book or journal.
- Eat early enough to give your body time to digest before you go to sleep.
- Make sure you are getting morning sunlight.
Sleep is a very important facet of our lives and when it’s off it can have a domino effect on other parts of our lives. When you struggle with sleep, it’s not so easy to function in your day-to-day life, and things like fatigue and brain fog can really take a toll. So try the steps listed above and give your body a chance to readjust - and maybe tone down the caffeine late in the day.
Author: Ally Rankin
Ally is a beloved part of the Flying Cow Fam. She manages our Lubbock, TX store with her BFF Atlas (shop pup!), who is usually found snoozing in the back. She got her Bachelors degree from Texas Tech where she majored in English and minored in Technical Communications. When she’s not creating content, managing her team, or writing blogs, she can usually be found making a new cup of coffee–she promises it’s not a problem.