Rhonda: So maybe we can start chatting a little bit about the world of chronobiology and circadian rhythm. I mean, many people listening to this conversation may have a general sense of what a circadian rhythm is, but a lot of people have never heard of it.

So maybe you can sort of explain what it is Satchin, and why they're important.

Satchin: Yeah. So just imagine if you have to do a lot of different things in a day you just can't do them at random. so that's why you come up with a calendar and put what time you want to do certain things, so that you are more productive.

So similarly, our body does zillion different tasks in a given day. for example, there are dozens of hormones. There are many digestive juices. Then there are brain chemicals. There are genes that have to turn on and off. So that's why our body also has a daily timetable that repeats itself every single day.

So that's why the term circadian rhythm. Circadian Literally means approximately a day and rhythm is rhythm. so this is a timetable that repeats every single day. So what it means is the first thing that comes to your mind is sleeping, because sleeping is a big chunk of time that our body, devotes to at a specific time of the night.

So similarly, almost every organ in our body, whether it's liver, kidney, heart, or even your skin, or even your hair follicle has to do certain tasks. So that means every single organ, every single cell has its own daily timed circadian rhythms.

Rhonda: And What's so interesting. Is that everything from, like you said, every organ in your body has a circadian rhythm and I find it when you think about when you're...a lot of people are interested in, when their optimal peak cognitive performance, occurs, a lot of people take nootropics or they'll drink caffeine, or, do a variety of things to try to improve their cognitive performance.

But even time of day actually is important for that. Right?

Satchin: Yes, So just like the brain has to sleep for certain hours at night. It also has a narrow window. in the first half of the day, when it has the best cognitive ability problem-solving ability, and maybe that's why Rhonda, you just scheduled a call at this time of the day

Rhonda: Yeah.

Satchin: In the morning.

What happens is when we don't sleep enough then our brain is foggy. and we just can't think clearly. And people think that by drinking a cup of coffee, we can start thinking clearly, which is actually not true. Caffeine just wakes up our brain, but it doesn't make us think clearly. And those experiments have been done extensively.

So we have to still respect the number of hours we sleep the previous night to be fully awake and can be fully functional. :

Rhonda: And what about the time of day in terms of like when neuro-transmitters are being produced? I mean, is there a circadian rhythm to that as well? :

Satchin: Yeah, almost every neurotransmitter has a, circadian rhythm. when I said every neurotransmitter, it's normally the neurotransmitter or maybe the receptor that receives the signal from neurotransmitter or the system that recycles the neurotransmitter. Any one of them can have a circadian rhythm. So that means at certain time of the day. We are more prone to feel happier at certain time of the day.

We may be more prone to feel a little sad. Those things are ingrained in our, circadian rhythms.

Rhonda: Some people are natural, early risers and other people are night owls. for me, I'm a pretty normal riser. I mean, I guess ever since I had children, I started to wake up earlier than usual, but I usually am up around 7:00 AM and I find that my peak mental performance is sort of late morning-ish, around 10:00 I feel like I'm the most mentally alert, but what about, people that are naturally early risers or people that are night owls. And so they, wake up much later in the day. Is it a good idea for them to force themselves to wake up early or. :

Satchin: Well, one thing is, irrespective of whether you are early riser or late riser, what's much more important is how many hours you sleep.

And many sleep scientists would agree that, an adult should sleep around seven hours. So that means if you're in bed for eight hours, then you'll get approximately seven hours of restful sleep. So now let's go back to early risers or night owls. Night owls, they may be night owls for many different reasons.

One, they may be genetically programmed to be night owl. and that number seems to be extremely low. Because, many people who think they are genetically programmed to be, late nighter they turn out to have certain other things. For example, caffeine habit, or binge-watching movies, or even having some work at home that gets them awake until late night.

And the challenge for night owler is although they're a night owl, The whole world is programmed to start. or your work is more likely to start at 8:00 AM. So that means you have to get up and start your day around 6:30 or 7:00 AM depending on your commute time. So, the late nighters, therefore have a big challenge that if they cannot go to sleep before, say 1:00 AM in the morning, then they're not getting enough sleep.

And that becomes very challenging for them to function at peak human performance on the following. day. so that way, what might be a potential solution is to figure out what is the cause of your night owl habit. a lot of people may or may not pay attention to the idea that a lot of people, will have a cup of coffee or tea in the evening, late afternoon, or when we socialize, we drink caffeinated drinks, or even chocolate or hot chocolate that can keep us awake. then the second thing is we also are exposed to a lot of bright light in the evening. And A lot of people I had seen if they take care of the lighting and caffeine, then they become normal.

So that means they can, go to sleep, say between 9:30 and 1130, so that they can get seven hours of restful sleep. And that way they can function normally from the next day, So, that's kind of my long-winding answer to a very simple question. how night owls can manage their human performance every single day.