Our apps tell you when to avoid light because light exposure is the number one input to your body’s circadian clock (which regulates sleep, metabolism, immune response, DNA repair, physical performance and more). Light at some times speeds up your clock and helps you fall asleep faster, while light at other times can slow down […]
Don’t use your phone before bed! Turn off overhead lights in the evening! Block blue light as you wind down! There are tons of recommendations out there for helping you get to sleep at night that deal with light and technology, and—spoiler alert—I think they’re right on the money. But missing from the standard advice […]
Imagine you’re on a boat. This boat has a sail, which you can put up or pull down. You’re on the ocean, and you’re trying to get to the sweet, sweet island of sleep. You can control the boat’s sail as much as you want. The only problem is: you can’t control the wind. But […]
Although circadian rhythms are being recognized more and more for their relevance to jet lag, shift work, the grogginess people feel after daylight saving time transitions, and health and medicine at large, it’s still a long way behind sleep in entering popular discourse. People know “8 hours a night,” but they don’t know “align your […]
When are you most productive? Are you an early bird, a night owl, or somewhere in between? Your prime productivity window each day may be different from mine, and it may even shift during your lifetime. For example, my current prime productivity period is from roughly 9am to 12pm each day, but ten years ago […]
A Guide to Non-Photic Zeitgebers We can all agree that the difference between night and day is, well, night and day when it comes to light. The progressive change in light present in our environment is subconsciously tracked by our bodies and that information is used to help time our sleep-wake cycles. Of course, not […]
Imagine you’re on a swing on a playground with a friend standing behind you. This friend is not a jerk, so they’re going to push you when a normal person would push you on a swing—right when you’re at the end of your backwards motion and ready to start moving forward again. They, like a […]
So you want to help shift workers feel better—sleep better, be safer, have fewer of the long term chronic health problems that go hand in hand with shift work. How do you do it? Where do you start? As some of the most circadian-wrecked people around, shift workers have been the topic of no small […]
NOOOOOO!!!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! (To hear our actual stance on permanent DST, check out this blog post. Short version: we love getting rid of the seasonal time change, as long as we end up on permanent standard time, not permanent DST.)
The Circadian Code by Satchin Panda In keeping with the theme of new beginnings, this January we introduced a book of the month. Join us as we work our way through books that highlight the importance of circadian and sleep health 😴 Up first: The Circadian Code by Satchin Panda of the Salk Institute for […]
