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Have you ever considered how your chronotype might affect your weight, well-being, and health? Most people are familiar with the ‘owls’ and ‘larks’ types, but few understand how internal clocks affect metabolism and how to align the body’s natural rhythms with societal demands.
Scientists have introduced the concept of ‘social jet lag,’ which occurs when your body is not synchronized with social activity and work. If you are an owl and work in the morning and during the day, you are likely to experience problems such as weight gain, cognitive decline, and poor sleep quality. You may also become dependent on tobacco, alcohol, or caffeine. Additionally, you may experience low energy levels, feelings of anxiety, stress, or even depression. For larks, the situation would be reversed. This is because routines that are not aligned with the body’s natural rhythms disrupt the hormonal system and gene expression. With chronic social jet lag, we experience irregular hunger and satiety cues. Our blood sugar levels also fluctuate throughout the day, and inflammation levels rise.
3 Tips to Harmonize Social Life and Chronotype:
1. Use a diary tracker to determine your social jet lag. Simply record daily when you go to bed and wake up for 7 days. The key days are when you don’t need an alarm clock and fall asleep when you really want to. Based on these days, you can understand how many hours you need for recovery and what kind of jet lag you experience regularly. Find your sleep midpoint (a half-hour window in the middle of your full sleep without an alarm clock). Ideally, build your recovery schedule by evenly distributing sleep time around this peak throughout the week.
2. A flexible schedule is a luxury available to few, so a compromise is to synchronize internal clocks and work schedules using light. It is light that signals the body which hormones to release: cortisol for alertness or melatonin to prepare for sleep. If you are a lark with evening work, use bright artificial light in the evenings and minimize darkness in the morning to shift your internal clocks. Owls can use the same method, but in the opposite direction.
3. Plan your meals in advance; this will make your chronotype friends with hormones. Eat at the same time, preferably low-glycemic-index foods, to minimize glucose spikes throughout the day. After just a few days, you will notice a significant increase in energy throughout the day.
