Participants:
Series Code: MH
Program Code: MH240007S
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00:01 Jumping rope takes rhythm, you may think some got it
00:03 and some don't but that's not entirely true. 00:06 I've got rhythm and you do too, it's what we were made for. 00:33 You've got rhythm, we're talking about physiological rhythm 00:38 the beating of the heart, the cadence of your breath, 00:41 rhythm of walking and running, day and night, women having 00:45 monthly cycles, digestion is even rhythmic, 00:48 yeah, you've got rhythm. 00:50 We're not necessarily referring how you move to music 00:53 or the beat of two jump ropes going on at the same time, 00:56 or if you play an instrument even though that's great to have 00:59 But our body has clocks that keep time, Cellular rhythm, 01:04 and it's how they conduct their functions instinct with 01:07 one another, that's what's is important. 01:09 The problem is we can get out of sync with nature 01:12 with each other, and with the organization's that we work for 01:16 but what is even more dangerous is when we get out of rhythm 01:19 with ourselves, this is our topic for today. 01:23 It has multiple elements of rhythm, it's all about rhythm. 01:28 Our body has a central body clock which is in our brain 01:32 in our hypothalamus and it has also peripheral body clocks 01:38 in each cell of our body. 01:40 So, our system is based on clocks. 01:43 Well, it's really interesting because our bodies actually have 01:47 a circadian rhythm and so what that means is that 01:51 our bodies do best when we have regular structure 01:56 and it knows what to expect. 01:58 And that circadian rhythm gets set by the body's master 02:06 clock which is in the hypothalamus and it's largely 02:10 responsive and the reason that that takes place 02:13 is in response to light. 02:15 Now the central clock in the brain is entrained by the light 02:20 and darkness cycle, day and night, when do you turn off 02:27 your lights, when do you wake up? When are you exposed to 02:31 sunshine? Those are the most important factors in training 02:35 your central clock. 02:37 When the retina in our cells or in our eyes gets 02:44 stimulated by light, 02:46 there are cells in the retina that are specifically 02:51 sensitive to that Blue Light and that in turn then will 02:56 send a signal to a part of the brain, called the hypothalamus 03:00 and that sets what we call the circadian rhythm or the body's 03:05 clock for the day. 03:06 So we have a master clock in our brain that is set by light 03:10 got it, our cells below our neck also have clocks and they are 03:15 set differently as we are going to see. 03:16 Some of our doctors refer to them as central and 03:20 peripheral clocks and these clocks are what make up our 03:23 circadian rhythm. The master central clock gets wound up by 03:28 and gets set with light and dark cycles. 03:31 It makes me realize that we were designed with this connect 03:35 with nature, specifically the sun that it is ninety three 03:39 millionish miles away. 03:41 We kind of think of ourselves as autonomous from nature 03:44 but in actuality, nature influences us physiologically 03:48 and mentally. 03:50 If we try to live autonomously, it obviously doesn't work 03:55 so well and even when we kind of our own circadian rhythm 03:58 by being up all night...Like maybe we're a shift worker 04:03 or we have to be up all night and we're using artificial 04:08 light and then we go and we try to use blackout curtains 04:11 to sleep during the day. We're fighting our natural 04:14 tendencies and even there studies have shown that 04:17 it really does stress people significantly and their 04:20 mental health issues go up even if they're trying to 04:24 live as best they can to counteract that. 04:28 The best way to reduce chronic inflammation is to have 04:33 a regular cycle. 04:35 There is something to be said about the regularity of this 04:37 sleep pattern as well so are they staying up until two 04:40 in the morning one night and then they are trying to go 04:41 to bed at nine the next night you know just the irregularity 04:44 the body likes to work on rhythms and our hormones 04:47 and all of those things are set up in rhythms and so 04:50 if we aren't regular with our rhythms and with our sleep 04:53 as one of the big rhythms, then it just becomes more 04:55 complicated as well. Hormones are definitely 04:58 circadian, you know we talked about Testosterone a little bit 05:02 earlier. Testosterone is very circadian in men for example 05:08 the testosterone level is higher in the morning 05:10 and it wanes as we go throughout the day and it's at its lowest 05:14 by mid-afternoon. 05:15 And when we are not in a routine, the hormone levels 05:23 can get all out of whack. 05:24 Based on what it gets used to it will actually start secreting 05:28 different hormones for example like cortisol and when 05:32 the cortisol starts peaking in the morning, 05:34 then that tells your body, hey, you know it's time 05:38 to be alert and awake and to get going for the day. 05:41 And that's actually a good thing, now, on the other hand 05:44 the body also starts knowing like based on when it gets 05:48 dark and just the regularity if you schedule like okay, 05:52 it's time to start secreting more melatonin which 05:53 will prepare you to fall asleep and get a good night's rest. 05:57 And then there's so... I mean those are just two 05:59 simple examples, there are so many different hormones 06:02 that the body needs to know what time do I secrete 06:06 that so that my body can function properly and if you 06:10 do that regularly, then your body can be running like 06:13 a well-oiled machine. 06:15 I told you, you got rhythm, even down to the hormonal level. 06:19 How important is it to live in harmony with this rhythm? 06:23 Well, it's actually very important, one simple 06:26 example is a study they did at Harvard where they took 06:30 ten people and they started shifting and messing with their 06:33 circadian rhythm and what they found was that those people 06:38 actually lost the ability to regulate their blood sugar 06:42 properly and entered into a pre-diabetic state. 06:45 And it also really messed up their levels of leptin which 06:50 is actually a hormone that secreted and tells your body 06:54 okay, you're full you don't need to eat more and so they 06:57 lost that ability to regulate their appetite properly. 07:01 So, the central and the peripheral clocks need to be 07:06 synchronized. Now what happens? why do we even care? 07:11 Why do they need to be synchronized? 07:14 A good example is in shift workers, where both of these 07:19 clocks are just uncoupled and they have a high risk 07:24 of developing cardiovascular disease, they have a higher 07:28 risk of developing obesity and also type II Diabetes. 07:32 In a home that I grew up in, there was a clock that sat on 07:36 the mantel above the fireplace. I remember my dad taking 07:39 a special key and winding it up periodically so it would keep 07:43 accurate time. The special key that keeps the master clock 07:46 in our brain wound up his day and night like you. 07:49 But the body clocks below the neck are peripheral clocks 07:54 are set by when we eat. 07:56 When we east we set trillions of cellular circadian clocks 08:00 in the body, when we eat and sleep irregularly, we get 08:05 totally out of rhythm. 08:07 Sleep the same time, wake up the same time. 08:09 The cycle is important as how we eat because 08:13 the way we eat and the times we eat actually matter 08:16 in regards to the pattern. 08:18 Research has shown that being consistent with the times 08:22 when we eat the meals is really important. 08:25 There's quite a few perspective studies looking at eating 08:30 our meals regularly verses irregularly. 08:33 And those people who don't have and consistent times for 08:37 their meals and just eat at erratic times, 08:41 they have about a 50% bigger chance of developing obesity 08:48 and metabolic syndrome type II Diabetes compared with those 08:51 who eat their meals at regular times. When we say regular 08:56 we mean consistent times, that means you eat for example 09:00 breakfast around 7:30, but if it's 7:25 or 7:40 that's still 09:07 fine, that's still one consistent time. 09:10 We don't mean having meals every two or three hours 09:16 or something. We mean having consistent times for your meals. 09:20 Well, ideally if you can have a regular time for breakfast, 09:25 lunch, and then if you are going to eat a third meal, 09:27 dinner, within an hour or so, that's the idea that if you're 09:33 eating at regular times, sleeping at regular times, 09:35 and your body gets all out of whack and it gets actually 09:39 overly stressed and it can't function properly. 09:42 It's not just what we eat but when we eat. 09:45 What if we ate food more on the time than on the urge 09:49 because it is available or being offered to me, 09:52 or I just happen to be driving by? 09:54 It would probably radically change our health 09:56 our weight and our relationship with food. 09:59 Even our GI system, even though it's not the master clock 10:04 it actually even has its own circadian rhythm, 10:06 every one of our organs actually has its own circadian rhythm 10:11 and so that's why it's so important when we think about 10:13 meal times. Our bodies are expecting certain things 10:17 at certain times and when we cooperate with that and 10:20 we actually train it the right way, then we're going to have 10:23 the most efficient ability to digest things properly 10:27 and to function well overall. 10:30 One of the earliest studies in Chrono nutrition 10:33 around 15 years ago, found that mice fed a high-fat diet 10:38 during the day when they would normally sleep gained 10:41 significantly more weight than mice fed the same high-fat diet 10:46 during the night when they would normally be awake. 10:48 This has been found true in humans as well. 10:52 A recent small study took 16 participants who were in the 10:56 overweight or obese range, they found that eating four hours 11:01 later for all the meals had profound effects on hunger, 11:05 and on the appetite-regulating hormones Leptin and Ghrelin 11:09 Which influences our drive to eat. Leptin signals I'm full, 11:14 not interested, don't want anymore. 11:16 Leptin was the one that decreased about 24 hours 11:20 when they were late eating compared to early eating. 11:23 In other words, eating late made the participants 11:27 more hungry and less likely to feel full for 24 hours. 11:32 They also found that when participants ate later 11:36 they burned fewer calories, saw biological changes that promote 11:40 fat growth not fat loss. And like Dr. Callovian shared 11:44 earlier, studies show that eating during the nighttime 11:48 like many shift workers do, can increase blood glucose 11:52 levels. Next, Dr. Callovian applies the concept of 11:57 Chrono nutrition to helping with jet-lag. 12:00 Chrono nutrition is an emerging area of research 12:05 trying to help us synchronize the body clocks, the central 12:09 and the peripheral body clocks and what goes into it. 12:13 Intermittent fasting, the right timing of the meals, 12:17 and the right frequency, no snacking, and eating only 12:22 two to three meals a day is a big part of it. 12:26 So, what can you do to synchronize the body clock? 12:29 One of the most important ways is intermittent fasting 12:34 and the right timing of your foods. 12:38 So, a simple example would be when you're for example traveling 12:42 and you're changing time zones, can you do something to make it 12:46 easier on your body? Absolutely, for example, 12:50 you take a flight to Europe and Europe is six hours ahead 12:56 and you are leaving in the evening. 13:00 The most important thing is to realize what the time 13:05 in Europe is when you are leaving and you know 13:08 that when you are leaving in the evening it's already 13:12 early in the morning when you are supposed to be sleeping 13:16 so you shouldn't eat anything when you are leaving 13:21 no matter what they are serving on the airplane. 13:23 You shouldn't be eating anything to make it easier 13:26 on your body and when you arrive in Europe, which will be 13:29 probably in the morning or just before noon, 13:34 you should really eating a lot on the good stuff 13:40 to tell your body good morning, it's time to start working 13:45 and then stop eating in the early afternoon again. 13:50 And that way your body will adjust quicker, 13:53 and that's just example when you're traveling. 13:57 But this is important on a daily basis for all of us. 14:00 How do we synchronize the clocks on a daily basis? 14:04 Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because that's 14:10 the jump start of your metabolism, it tells your body 14:13 it's day, it's time to start working... 14:16 Research shows that when people eat breakfast, 14:21 they burn more calories during their physical activity. 14:25 So, it really changes your metabolism for the whole day 14:31 so breakfast is the most important meal of the day. 14:34 And on the other hand, dinner should be the lightest meal 14:39 of the day and if you can skip dinner, you get extra points. 14:43 Because our ancestors got it right, eat breakfast like a king 14:48 lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper 14:51 because dinner tends to disrupt the body clock. 14:55 It tends to override all of the metabolic effects, 15:00 it tends to contribute to depositing more fat. 15:04 It's been shown that if you eat the same amount of energy 15:08 as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you will deposit 15:12 most fat after dinner. 15:14 After the same energy you consumed, so the timing of the 15:19 meals is really really important. 15:21 When we look at the length of night-fast in the 15:27 Adventist Health Study too, we found out that having at 15:31 least 18 hours of night-fast was most beneficial 15:35 which gives us two meals apart eating two meal a day 15:41 about five to six hours apart. 15:44 So that sounds like the best plan. 15:49 It's really important that we do and intermittent fast for ideally 15:55 about five hours between meals and that gives the body a chance 16:01 to actually get into a detoxification mode. 16:07 If we are constantly eating snacks every two the three hours 16:11 the body's never able to properly detoxify. 16:13 So, basically having no calories between meals obviously 16:19 decreases your caloric intake right? that helps your body 16:23 get better at burning fat from you access fat tissue. 16:27 Okay, then you have at least 12 hours of no food 16:30 from the end of supper or the evening meal to the 16:33 beginning of breakfast and some people do better going longer 16:37 than that and occasionally doing an extended one-day 16:40 or two two-day water fast can be very beneficial. 16:44 But most patients prefer going to a breakfast/lunch 16:48 program so that they're not having any evening meals 16:51 so now they go to an 18-plus hour overnight fast 16:55 so that the body's burning fat on a daily basis at a heightened 17:00 level and that for many people gets them where they need to be. 17:04 And that's where two meals a day come into practice 17:08 the intermittent fasting on a daily basis. How you eat your 17:12 meals is also important. 17:13 Do you eat only a few times a day? Let's say two or three 17:19 times a day? Or do you snack? If you snack you disrupt your 17:25 body clock again. It's been shown that if you eat the same 17:30 meal in one sitting, and compare it to eating the same meal 17:34 in six small meals during the day, the thermic effect of food 17:39 the amount of energy that's released in the form of heat 17:42 after the meal will be bigger after the big meal. 17:46 So for your weight management it's really better to eat 17:50 fewer times a day and the research has shown that 17:54 two meals a day are actually even better than three. 17:58 I studied this subject at Loma Linda University analyzing 18:03 the data for more than 50,000 people from the study and 18:07 looking at how many times people we're eating and how they were 18:13 changing their body weight over the follow-up of more than 18:17 seven years. And what we found out was really fascinating. 18:21 We found a linear relationship between the number of meals 18:25 and how people were gaining weight. 18:27 So, when we put three meals a day as our reference group 18:32 snacking that means eating four, five, or six meals a day. 18:38 It was just like increasing their risk of gaining weight 18:41 over time. In contrast to eating two meals a day 18:46 where people who are eating two meals a day were better off 18:50 than people eating three meals a day. 18:52 This study was not the only one, there's also other studies 18:56 showing that two meals a day are actually better for 19:00 weight management and metabolism compared with three meals a day. 19:04 So if you can do it, by all means just skip dinner 19:07 and that's your intermittent fasting on a daily basis. 19:11 And also people who were eating breakfast were protected against 19:15 weight gain compared with people who were skipping 19:19 breakfast and people who ate breakfast as their largest meal 19:24 they were protected against weight gain even more than those 19:29 who ate their largest meal as lunch or dinner. 19:32 Now the peripheral clocks in each organ of our body 19:37 needs to be synchronized with the central clock and 19:41 that happens through nutrition clues. 19:45 That happens through cycles of eating and fasting 19:49 When do you eat? When do you start eating? when do you finish 19:54 eating during the day? And also through the composition 19:59 of the diet. What do you eat? High-fat diet for example 20:03 desynchronizes both of the clocks. 20:08 While a plant-based diet will help synchronize them. 20:12 But also, it comes down to the composition of the meals 20:18 high-fat meals tend to disrupt the body clock and delayed 20:24 the expression of clogged genes, there is clock genes in each 20:28 cell of our body and as the name of the gene suggests 20:34 these are important for the synchronization of the 20:37 peripheral clock and the central clock. 20:39 If we eat a high-fatty meal, the expression of the clogged 20:46 genes will be delayed and that also happens for example 20:50 if you wake up and don't eat your breakfast for a long time 20:54 until noon let's say. Some people do intermittent fasting 20:58 in this way, they don't eat breakfast, they eat lunch 21:01 and they eat dinner. 21:02 But guess what? That also delays the expression of the 21:07 clogged genes. So it's not ideal for the clogged gene 21:10 expression and the synchronization of the 21:13 body clock. More powerful is to start eating your 21:16 breakfast, eat only two or three meals a day and be done 21:21 in the early afternoon. 21:23 It matters as far as when we exercise, we know that if you 21:26 exercise in the morning your cortisol goes up 21:28 you also affect the metabolism, you affect mood, 21:31 you affect everything. Exercise is not just exercise, 21:33 it's the best mood-altering drug out there. 21:37 It's the best sleep-inducing. drug out there, 21:40 it's the best metabolic stimulant especially if its 21:45 done early. Your sleep patterns are programmed in you, 21:49 you can fight it but it's going to affect you long term. 21:51 You might not even feel tired because we have coffee, 21:54 you know we medicate ourselves and at night you knock yourself 21:58 out with alcohol which might knock you out but you're not 22:00 going to get into a deep sleep. 22:02 But your pattern is your pattern, your biology is your 22:05 biology, the parts that you don't need to fight, 22:08 so it's almost like that serenity prayer, you know. 22:11 God give me the wisdom so... where you can't change it, don't. 22:16 Where you can't defect it know it, live by it. 22:19 But where you can, then you alter it, fix it, change it. 22:23 And there a lot of things that you can't, you're circadian 22:26 clock is important, let's live by that. 22:30 You know, I hope after listening to today's episode, you're more 22:34 willing to take on the battle the battle against habits 22:38 We may have formed a practice for years, maybe it's lack of 22:42 structure, lack of rhythm to your day of night-time snacking. 22:46 I would encourage you to pick one thing, pick a time and 22:50 start working on this to get in sync with your inner rhythm 22:53 so you can live the masterpiece of your life. 22:56 But focusing on changing our behaviors to line with our 23:00 internal clocks, it is a challenge and it's a battle 23:03 that's worth tackling. 23:05 Make regular times for eating, regular times for sleeping, 23:09 and then we've talked recently here about the idea of 23:14 the weekly rest as well. 23:15 And so I think those factors. are huge and especially my 23:20 patients that have bipolar because bipolar is largely 23:23 related to a circadian rhythm disturbance, it's so important 23:28 but for all of us, it's important but especially I emphasize it 23:30 with bipolar patients. 23:32 Now let's talk about the other clock which is behavior 23:35 which is habit, we are creatures of habit, we've heard that 23:40 but we are understating that. 23:41 We're not just 20% habit, we're not just 40% habit, 23:45 we're mostly habit, even our political ideology after a while 23:50 becomes habit. It was a seed that was planted and then 23:53 then we just create thoughts around habits if somebody 23:55 throws something without even thinking we know what comes out 23:58 actually, we don't know what comes out, it comes out. 24:00 Habit and rhythm is every, it doesn't mean that we don't 24:06 like it, it doesn't mean that we fight it, 24:08 it means that we have to be aware of it so it doesn't 24:11 overtakes us in the wrong directions, it doesn't alter our 24:17 patterns of living in a complex world and we have some 24:21 measure of control over that rhythm. 24:23 Our habits are created by repeated behaviors that are 24:27 reinforced. Then after a certain pattern which is rhythmic 24:32 it becomes inculcated in your body because your dopamine 24:35 pathway, which is also rhythm. Your dopamine is not released 24:39 in one even...it's actually rhythmic release. 24:42 Then it becomes part of your very existence 24:45 So, were all about rhythm, we're all about pattern... 24:48 The circadian clock actually controls not just sleep, 24:54 indirectly it controls your food intake, and how it affects 25:00 the chemicals that make you full, satiety and hunger, 25:05 it affects mood with the cycles. 25:07 We see this in dementia where later in dementia where 25:10 people have this sun downing. Later in the daytime, they become 25:14 more confused, more agitated as not just because light is 25:19 going down, it's actually the clock, the cycle. 25:22 So, that cycle is critical for us to be aware of first 25:25 with sleep, sleep the same time wake up the same time. 25:28 The cycle is important as far as how we eat, 25:32 because the way we eat and the times we eat 25:35 actually matter in regards to the pattern. 25:37 It matters as far as when we exercise, we know that if you 25:41 exercise in the morning when the cortisol goes up 25:43 you also affect the metabolism, the affect mood 25:46 you affect everything, exercise is not just exercise, 25:48 it's the best mood altering drug out there. 25:52 It's the best sleep-inducing drug out there. 25:55 It's the best metabolic stimulant, especially if it's 26:00 done early, so our system is based on clocks. 26:03 Have you ever done Double Dutch jump rope? 26:06 Yes! Really? Were you good at it? 26:10 Because I picture the body and having this Double Dutch 26:12 right, and it's just like you said, the circadian rhythm 26:16 but a lot of times we live in such a way that its 26:19 outside of that rhythm, it's like conflicting and so we don't 26:25 experience that flourishing life you know that it 26:29 feels like you are doing double-Dutch well like 26:31 ah, I'm in the groove, I got the rhythm and I'm syncing 26:34 with the ropes and I think sometimes, well if we learned 26:37 how to live more harmoniously with our own biological 26:41 rhythm it would feel like that. 26:42 Are you good at double-Dutch? 26:45 It's hard, I had forgotten how hard it was, 26:48 people who do double-Dutch are so impressive, 26:51 they definitely have rhythm. 26:53 The good news is we don't have to be good at double-Dutch 26:57 to live in rhythm, we can live more harmoniously with our own 27:01 biological rhythm and it's going to be amazing. 27:05 It's what you were made for. |
Revised 2025-01-21