The Sunday Read: ‘The Quest by Circadian Medicine to Make the Most of Our Body Clocks’

The Daily

The New York Times

News, Daily News

4.5 • 97.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

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Summary

The concept of having a “body clock” is a familiar one, but less widespread is the awareness that our body contains several biological clocks. Understanding their whims and functions may help us optimize our lives and lead to better overall health, according to scientists. Every physiological system is represented by a clock, from the liver to the lungs, and each one is synced “to the central clock in the brain like an orchestra section following its conductor,” writes Kim Tingley, a New York Times journalist who explored the effect this knowledge has on how conditions are treated, and spoke to scientists about how misalignment or deregulation of these clocks can have a profound effect on our health. Exploring the components that dictate our lives, and how they work together like the “gears in a mechanical watch,” Ms. Tingley builds a case for the importance of paying attention to all our circadian rhythms — and not just when it comes to monitoring our sleep.

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0:00.0	We generally think about time as being something external, like the clock at your wall, or something
0:17.1	we control, like when we make plans for dinner.
0:20.8	But actually, time controls us.
0:23.7	In fact, every single one of ourselves has a tiny 24 hour clock that's running nonstop.
0:30.7	They're these molecular timers that can be calibrated by our sun, this star that's millions
0:37.5	of miles away.
0:40.2	I'm Kim Tingley.
0:41.8	I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times magazine.
0:46.9	So the biological processes that these super small 24 hour clocks run on, we might refer
0:52.5	to them as our circadian rhythms.
0:55.6	Circadian literally meaning about and day.
0:59.7	Even if you've never heard of a circadian rhythm.
1:02.2	If you've ever experienced jet lag, you've experienced a dysregulation of your circadian system.
1:08.4	All of a sudden, you're eating and sleeping at different times than you're used to.
1:13.2	Your groggy, maybe you're a little cranky, or you have an upset stomach.
1:18.0	All of these negative physiological changes are a result of clocks in your organ systems,
1:23.8	getting used to you sleeping, waking, and eating at new times.
1:29.0	It's not good for the body.
1:30.9	And studies show that working night shifts and sleeping during the day puts people at
1:35.7	higher risk of conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.
1:42.1	But recently, scientists have been asking, what if you could harness the circadian rhythm
1:46.6	to improve health?
	...

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