“If you want to become an earlier chronotype, get more zeitgeber during your phase advance region and less zeitgeber during your phase delay region.”
My head is in my hands.
At parties, if no one stops me, I will often rant about math’s UI/UX problem. Listen, I say. We just casually drop that sin-1(x) is different from sin(x)-1 and make kids feel stupid if they don’t get it. We have six different ways of denoting the derivative. If math were a computer program, it would be colorblind inaccessible, and half the buttons would be 4 pixel-by-4 pixel squares.
Circadian rhythms are kind of the same way.
“The circadian rhythm is very important to health.” Well, actually, there are lots of circadian rhythms in your body, not just one.
“Circadian rhythms matter because of sleep.” Sure, but not just that. They’re not the same thing.
Phase angle of entrainment. Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. Unmasked core body temperature minimum.
Don’t get me wrong—there’s a reason for these terms, and I’m not against terminology per se. Nor am I against researchers using technical terms to talk to one another.
The problem is that we also need understandable, non-technical ways of talking to people who don’t live, breathe, and eat circadian rhythms all day, every day. We even need better ways of talking to our trainees in the sleep and circadian field.
It’s been long enough now that I’ve nearly forgotten what it was like in my earliest days of learning this stuff, but back then any time someone said “phase advance” at me, my brain started whirring and making overtaxed computer fan sounds. Phase advance… means you’re advancing your phase… means you’re moving forward… means you hit circadian markers earlier in the day… means you’re earlier.
Or we could just say “early-ify.” As in, “light in the morning early-ifies you.”
I deserve no credit for coming up with this (it all goes to my friend Doug’s daughter, Rosie), but I love it. And sure, technically it’s your personal biological morning where light early-fies you, which, for a shift worker or other disrupted person, might occur at 2:00 pm, or 11:00 pm, or 3:00 am. But broad strokes first: light in the morning early-ifies you. Light at night late-ifies you.
We need more things like this if we want to move the perception of circadian rhythms from “sleep’s little buddy” to “foundational to all aspects of health.” We need intuitive, jargon-free ways of communicating what circadian health even is.
It’s what’s led me to start talking about healthy circadian rhythms as finding a groove. Strong, high-amplitude, well-entrained circadian rhythms help you to find a sleep groove. Eating all your calories during a ten hour window of the day helps you find a food groove. People know what it’s like to be in a groove when they’re breathing, or walking, or swinging on a swing: you’ve got momentum, it’s effortless, you’re robust to disruptions. And they’ll know what it’s like to be in a circadian groove once they experience the life-altering effects of sending clear day/night signals to their body, over and over again.
First, though, we need to get them to make the lifestyle changes that get them that clear day/night signal. And for that, we need them to understand what we mean.
