When you last time looked at your watch to see what the time is? A minute ago, an hour ago? And what the time told you? Did it tell you that it is the time when you think faster and calculate more efficiently?
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Actually, your other clock located in the hypothalamus of the brain, much powerful of that particular one you carry on your wrist, tries very hard to tell you that. You just forgot to read its numbers.
Clock's mechanism in your brain determinates when your blood pressure will be lower, would you be glum in the morning before you drink your first cup of coffee, how fast you can write a memo and how much mistakes you will make writing it. You carry your circadian clock just like a crocodile from the story of Peter Pan, but without hearing its beating.
Your circadian clock depends on the external and the internal factors. It depends on light, darkness and your hormones, and just like your wrist watch it must be synchronized to the local time. Disturbing the rhythm of all four may affect your health.
We all do not act the same, that's true. Some people easily wake up at 7am and go to sleep around 9pm or 10pm. Some people sleep until 11am and are awake until 2am or 3am. And that is actually a normal behaviour. Science confirms "night hawks" and people who salute early morning sun. Still, those who claim that they sleep best during the day and are more efficient at night probably believe in that, but science states that they damage their immunological system and health on a long term basis. That kind of behaviour affects weight, diabetes, insomnia, depression, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. We need bright light for working; it feeds our brain cells and makes us happy and healthy. It helps people to adjust to jet lag and changes in work shifts.
But we don't need to fly across the country to experience jet lag. A lot of countries around the world set clocks every year to daylight savings time switching clocks forward or backward an hour. And as our body stands much easier going west than going east that's how an extra hour we got by switching our wrist clock back makes us happy. But, as the day begins to pass your brain will tell you: "It's a lunch time." And your wrist watch will answer: "No, it's not. You must work an hour more." It will take you three days to go back to normal 24-hours rhythm.
Just like sun and moon affect high tide and low tide, that's how they affect our circadian clock. Some medical studies show better results with minimal side effects in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, allergies and epilepsy when drugs are coordinated with circadian clock. The lowest blood pressure levels occurred in the morning when your body still acting slow and rose at the end of the day. Similar to that, the levels are lower during the summer months and higher during the winter months.
Adjust your circadian clock to the local time. Our focus, creativity and short-term memory are at their highest until 11am - use it, don't oversleep it. Around noon we start to feel tired and that's the best time to take a break. The time between 2pm and 3pm is good for going to see the dentist. This is the time when our pain level is lowest. Around 5pm our long-term memory works most efficiently and that is also the good time for sports activities. ■