Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) and Circadian Clock
Our entire body works on an internal clock and the more we support this internal clock the better we ultimately feel.
When we follow a routine, we allow our brains to be more creative because our brains don’t have to think about what is happening next. We take our body and brain out of the “survival” mode we are creating by not having structure and allowing it to “relax” and focus on the things it wants to.
Supporting a routine can be as simple as waking up and going to bed at the same time every day. Just going to bed later or waking up later, can throw off our entire internal clock because our body doesn’t know what “time” it is and will process our “day” as if it is waking up at the usual time. This is why, when we wake up later, we don’t feel tired at our usual bedtime and this pushes our circadian rhythm out farther and farther.
Another thing we can help with our internal clock is by eating at the same time every day. This creates predictability for our bodies and also helps manage our metabolism because it is on a clock system again. We can predict when our bodies will become hungry when we initiate a system of when we are choosing to eat.
Time-restricted eating is a lifestyle of when we first drink our morning coffee or when we eat breakfast, is when our internal clock starts. When we are on a schedule of eating at 10-12 hours intervals each day, we will lower the number of calories we will be eating throughout our day but we also allow our body to go into a rest mode at the end of our day. This allows our bodies to slow digestion. If we are eating during this time, we don’t digest our food properly and this will cause our digestion to be backed up.
So if we start our day eating at 7am, we can eat up until 5pm (10 hour TRE) or 7pm (12 hour TRE). That means our last intake of food stops at these times.
Another benefiting factor to our circadian rhythm is light exposure and our exercise routines. We should be exposing ourselves to sunlight in the morning to initiate this internal clock to start. We should also be working out at the same time every day as well.
Working out in the morning 6-10am seems to be the most beneficial for our bodies because it speeds up our metabolism and we will burn calories from our workout throughout the day. This doesn’t mean that working out at night isn’t helpful but it isn’t as beneficial when we are working out in the morning hours.
Here are some great resources if you are interested in learning more about the circadian rhythm of our bodies:
These are affiliate links:
Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life
So what does this have to do with mental health?
When are body works more in sync so does our brain. Our mood and our brain’s capacity to focus, have longer periods of attention, and our ability to handle stress will increase. There is a lot of research going into the brain-gut connection and how our body has a lot more effect on our brain and mood than we once thought.
Eating at the same time every day and also allowing our body to process our food appropriately allows our body to focus more on complex tasks within our system instead of worrying about our next meal. This also includes sleep. If our bodies have consistent and regular sleep cycles, we function better overall and our mood reflects that.
Exercise is another thing that helps with stress relief, mood management, digestion, and immunity. All these things ultimately help with our mental health.
