Have you ever woken up and felt that you were down without any apparent or valid tangible reason? Have you then tried going about your day trying to work, study, or even finish some chores while not feeling fully engaged or active? Well, you may not want to rule out that your circadian rhythm might be related to your emotional and mental state, or what is more casually known as your “mood”.
In case you wonder what is the relationship between your mood and circadian rhythm, you may need first to explore the nature of circadian rhythm. In simple words, it is the internal timetable present in every single cell, in every organ of our body, including the brain. Circadian rhythm also constitutes the master program that guides what time of the day and night every single gene of our 20,000 genes turns on or off.
As homo sapiens, we have evolved over thousands of years to adapt to our environment and anticipate the constant changes in our surroundings, such as climate, food availability, risk factors…, etc. All of those conditions are related to the Earth’s rotation around its axis, a 24-hour cycle. That is where circadian rhythm comes to the rescue as it helps us adapt to those changes.
Our circadian rhythm is controlled by multiple genes and is responsible for a variety of important functions, including our wakefulness, body temperature, metabolism, digestion, and hunger. Circadian rhythm also controls memory consolidation; the timing of hormone secretion; and body healing. It has been found that an irregular circadian rhythm can negatively influence a person’s ability to sleep and function properly. Consequently, such irregularities can result in several mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective disorder.
Most studies that have been made in this field to draw a link between circadian rhythm and mood problems have been conducted on shift workers who naturally have to succumb to unnatural sleep periods out of sync with their normal circadian rhythms. It has been reported that night-shift workers are 40% more likely to develop depression than daytime workers. Because of this relationship between mental health and circadian rhythms, many successful treatments of depression along with other disorders, include bright light therapy, wake therapy, and interpersonal and social rhythm therapy.
To avoid such irregularities and take better care of your circadian rhythm, it is always advised to maintain a restorative 8-hour sleep and avoid eating right after we get up in the morning to enable our organs to be fully awake and ready for digestion. Counterintuitively, the first thing you need to do right after you leave your bed is get a healthy dose of daylight; 30 minutes, at least to resynchronize your brain clock. That is why intermittent fasting is gradually becoming more popular worldwide, as it allows your body to receive and digest food at rigorous timings and synchronizes the circadian rhythms of all the body organs.
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