Get to Bed! Round 2

 Get to Bed! Round 2 

 Rest is mega important if you want to thrive in midlife 

Chronic poor sleep is rife when you hit the peri and post menopause years. Oestrogen is linked with helping sleep and progesterone is relaxing. Missing both of those and it's a recipe for frazzle on toast. 

It can be tempting to delay going to bed because you're scared of how crap a night's sleep you might get. However, ignore your circadian clock at your peril!

Professor Russell Foster is a scientist at Oxford University and has dedicated his life to studying circadian rhythms and has a book out, "Lifetime: The New Science of the Body Clock".

The latest findings show the body's internal ticking clock has a dramatic impact on our health, weight and mental wellbeing. Even our immune system has a strong 24-hour cycle. Simple steps in understanding and working with your body clock can help you be more alert, sleep better, manage your weight and lower your risk of disease.

Not everyone is exactly the same, you might be a morning person and your husband a night owl. Differences do exist. But, if you're waking up feeling like you've never been to sleep then you ought to do something about it.

It takes time to get going or slow down - you're not a computer with an on/off switch

Thank about the processes the body has to achieve - it needs to get the right substances to the right tissues and organs at the right time of day. That timing structure is delivered by our circadian system - it optimises your biology.

The master clock sits deep within the brain and is like a conductor of an orchestra. The conductor cells produce a rhythm and the rest of the body takes its reference from that. Profound changes from night to day are replicated in all living beings (including plants). The body is simply anticipating these changes and gears up the body to make the most of the differences. For example, before you wake up your glucose metabolism starts to increase. Stress hormones start to rise. Blood pressure starts to rise. All these processes are gearing up in anticipation of increased activity when we actually wake up.

If you ignore your body clock and go to bed late, what happens?

You start failing to notice social cues, lose empathy, risk-taking and impulsivity start to take over. The brain also forgets positive experiences and dwells on the negative. So then your daytime decision-making is based on the negative rather than the positive. 

Reliance on caffeine to stay awake then booze to get you to sleep can become a habit, multi-tasking goes out of the window, concentration drops, communication and decision-making skills fall apart and you lose social connectivity.

Severe sleep disruption can lead to cardiovascular problems, heart disease and lower immunity. You're less able to fight off bacterial infection and depression is made much wore by sleep disruption. 

So terrible sleep is much worse for you than just feeling tired. 

Nutrition influences

Evidence shows if you have a constant infusion of glucose through the day, the body is much more efficient at clearing that glucose in the first half of the day. It tails off towards the end of the day and becomes inefficient. If you end the day with high levels of glucose then you're in the danger zone of becoming more glucose intolerant and it can lead to type 2 diabetes. 

Load your calories up front - breakfast and lunch. Proportionately less in the evening. 

Are you skipping breakfast? Fasting? Hmm... you know I'm not a fan of that, especially if you're active.

Notes taken from the Zoe Science & Nutrition Podcast which has more detailed chat about shift workers.