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circadian rhythms


Pacgirl
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I have been reading a book about circadian rhythms and how people who dont follow them are affected (No more diets by Daniela Jakubowicz)

What the book says is that we have hormone fluctuations during the day, regulated by sunlight(of course regulated by the brain, but sunlight stimulates this).

the writer suggests that in order to get strong and avoid getting fat, people should sleep at night and be awake during the day, excersice in the evening, have a huge breakfast and a poor dinner, avoid fats and carbs at night, go to sleep early, wake up early, etc. All your activities must be according to circadian rhythms.

the point is that I find it very difficult to behave like this, i just cant get used to it! I go to bed at 5 am and wake up really late, i find it easier to study and work in the afternoon and at night.

On the other hand I have two friends who work at night and i have seen how they became weak in a year, i dont know if its because they dont sleep at night or the reason is other.

Do you follow the circadian lifestyle? do you think is really important following it? Id like to know about your experiences, i dont know if its worth trying to change!

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Sounds like another pseudo science load of horse shit just like the caveman diet or whatever nonsense. The human body is infinitely adaptable to many diets, routines, schedules, climates etc. My fasting window is from 8-9pm at night and ends at 10am-12pm the next day, I lift in the AM as well. I go to bed late and rise late as well. I am ripped, below 8% body fat.

 

Know what works? Finding out how YOUR body reacts and find what works best for YOU, both physically and psychologically, because hey, it doesn't mean crap if it makes you bonkers.

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i believe that some points are true, i think that sunlight make some hormonal change, what i doubt is if difference with artificial light is really important. theres some research about the amount of suicides(as a way to measure depression) in countries with different sunlight hours per day which finds that its higher in those places where the sun rises only a few hours. somehow its said that serotonine is stimulated by sunlight and melatonine by darkness, which explain why we find it better to get asleep in a dark room.

accepting this i wouldnt find it so hard to believe that insuline and the growing hormone (these are mentioned in the book, in some research the writer says she did) are also regulated by sunlight in some way, of course not only by sunlight!

of course the book tries to convince you that you will at least die if you dont change your lifestyle haha!

but, books and shit apart, perhaps it is a little true. i wonder how deep would be the difference between one and another lifestyle.

its very interesting knowing of someone like Cellar, who lives in an owl- way like me and has succeded, which points out that the difference may not be really big...

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So you use that kind of language and blame me for interpreting it as hostile? I think this is an interesting post that someone has put some effort into putting together and I think you are being a dick.

 

This is not a Christian message board. I may use whatever language I please to express myself. You are entitled to your opinion but I still think you're over analyzing my post(s).

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Pacgirl, if you find yourself unable to behave according to someone's ideal then it must be wrong right? Though we also have to factor in the effect of artificial lighting, modern routines etc. There is no doubt that sunlight has an effect on hormones and your body will respond to that. From what I have read, artificial light is confusing and even damaging our circadian rhythm, we are part of nature, and just like grass will not release pollen until it has the right amount of sun per day, a chicken will not lay eggs without enough sunlight and will not sleep unless the light dims slowly, we too are influenced by the sun. It is just a difficult thing to exploit when you have the ability to confuse that natural response using artificial lighting.

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Pacgirl, if you find yourself unable to behave according to someone's ideal then it must be wrong right?

more or less, i also find it hard to train, dont think its wrong

From what I have read, artificial light is confusing and even damaging our circadian rhythm

i agree, but artificial light doesnt have the same spectrum of the sun so we cant just put artificial light as a substitute.

a chicken will not lay eggs without enough sunlight

sorry to say that they will, here they live in large rooms with artificial light, i dont think they know what sunlight is (well maybe they are given other chemicals in order to compensate this lack )

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....

the writer suggests that in order to get strong and avoid getting fat, people should sleep at night and be awake during the day, excersice in the evening, have a huge breakfast and a poor dinner, avoid fats and carbs at night, go to sleep early, wake up early, etc. All your activities must be according to circadian rhythms.

....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Human_health

 

Sounds like the author is using a weakly understood scientific discovery and using it to sell a diet book. Surely there is SOME impact with diet and fat storage, but the impact will be very minimal when compared to other, 'standard' effects, such as caloric restriction, exercise, etc.

 

Also, there are definitely artificial light sources that emit the same light as our sun, but they aren't common and are probably overpriced. I think it's definitely beneficial to sleep at night and be up during the day, but many people do not have schedules that allow that....

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Pacgirl, if you find yourself unable to behave according to someone's ideal then it must be wrong right?

more or less, i also find it hard to train, dont think its wrong

My point was that there are a bunch of ideals going around that are true in theory, but in reality there are a number of factors that make it not work in practice.

 

 

From what I have read, artificial light is confusing and even damaging our circadian rhythm

i agree, but artificial light doesnt have the same spectrum of the sun so we cant just put artificial light as a substitute.

True, artificial light does not give us the benefits of vitamin D, but it does register as light in our brains.

 

 

a chicken will not lay eggs without enough sunlight

sorry to say that they will, here they live in large rooms with artificial light, i dont think they know what sunlight is (well maybe they are given other chemicals in order to compensate this lack )

 

Again, it is timed to be at least 14hrs of light because that is how much light a chicken needs to see for them to lay eggs, the lights are also set to fade out at night so they won't stay awake all night.

 

So yeah, overall point is that we can override circadian rhythms with artificial light with none of the benefits of actual sunlight.

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