The daily sunrise and sunset, the Lunar cycles, the annual climatic cycles, the planetary movements, everything in our universe has a set rhythm and a set cyclic pattern. Our bodies are also a product of this nature and it has a pattern – a daily pattern, a monthly pattern, an annual pattern and also a lifelong cyclic pattern. When we align our daily habits around sleeping, eating, drinking, physical activity as well as mental activity in tune with this natural cyclic pattern we tend to be in a balance and flow, which is conducive to a wholesome experience of life and health. Conversely when our daily routines become random or misaligned with our biological clock we become restless, imbalanced and loose the ease of flow, getting into dis-ease.
The various physical organs and functions of our body are aligned with twelve energy meridians. These meridians are – 1. The Large Intestine meridian, 2. Stomach meridian, 3. Spleen meridian, 4. Heart meridian, 5. Small Intestine meridian, 6. Bladder meridian, 7. Kidney Meridian, 8. Circulation sex meridian (pericardium), 9. Triple warmer (adrenal) meridian, 10. Gall Bladder meridian, 11. Liver meridian and 12. Lung meridian. The natural energies flow is dominant through each of these meridians like clock work starting from around sunrise, for about two hours in each through the 24 hours of the day. Therefore certain activities like the heaviest meal of the day, the time of intensive physical exercise, nighttime sleep, daytime nap, intellectual or stressful activity, sexual activity, clearing of bowels, etc happen in a perfect flow only when engaged during certain times of the day.
Note: This is an image from wikipedia, you can read the entire article about circadian rhythm here in case you want to know more about it.
The circadian rhythm gets upset with some activities such as: (1) International travel across timezones, (2) Working night shifts, (3) Random irregular eating habits, (4) Stress, overthinking, worry or anxiety throughout the day, (4) Random irregular sleep times or insufficient sleep, (5) Strenuous physical activity during the low body temperature cycle times. When the circadian rhythm remains upset for prolonged periods of time it could result in lower immunity, illness or longterm chronic disease.
The body is quite flexible and adaptive to changes in habitual timings but the new habit needs to be regular. You can easily reset your circadian rhythm by having a fixed time for going to sleep and waking up. Except that it is impossible to have a perfectly balanced circadian rhythm as long as you are working night shifts or irregular shifts. In those unavoidable conditions you can still learn certain healthy coping mechanisms to reduce occurrence of illness or disease.
How to find out if your circadian rhythm is upset and needs to be reset? Some of the ways that your body tells you about this imbalance are – frequent headaches, long term mild headache or heaviness, feeling lethargic upon waking up from sleep, feeling sleepy throughout the day, feeling uneasy or uncomfortable all the time, low resistance to infections, feeling irritable, restless or morose most of the time, etc.
Your body is more likely to experience peak fitness and health when you have a daily routine of going to sleep around 10 pm, sleeping for 7 to 8 hours, eating your largest meal of the day around noon, engaging in stressful or intellectual efforts during mid day and strenuous physical activity around early evening. An hour or two variance from this ideal timing is ok and each person may find a slightly different routine more suited.
When your actual routine is irregular or totally in variance to the ideal one due to unavoidable circumstances, you can offset the effects to some extent by adopting some practices that would keep your body pH neutral or alkaline instead of acidic. In addition to this, a regular habit of sitting to meditate and doing energy movements to ease the flow of energies in your body will greatly help. In contrast quick fix coping mechanisms such as caffeine, sugar, or similar energy boosting substances may give a temporary relief but result in much damage in the long term.
Reach out to selvansmentoring for help in cultivating healthy habits for a lifetime.