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A Rigid Routine Is Key to a Healthy Life
Experts say that to stay well, we need more ‘zeitgebers’ — things like light exposure, exercise, and mealtimes
When the pandemic first hit, stay-at-home took away the normal order of your day. Schedules were thrown out the window, only to be loosely pieced back together.
During a time when mental and physical health are more important than ever, that’s not great, experts say. In fact, experts say that it’s time to tighten up your routine. After weathering the pandemic for the last few months, it’s time for a change.
Routine is where humans thrive. A recent survey from USC’s Center for the Digital Future found that roughly one-third of adults say they miss having set routines in their lives. But it’s more than comfort. “Our bodies naturally want to create rhythms for everything from hormone release to digestion, cognitive functioning, and athletic ability, body temperature, and alertness,” says Christopher Winter, MD, owner of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine. As your body knows what to expect, it can calibrate responses so you can function at your best. “Your brain doesn’t do things accidentally,” he says.
With the shift of stay-at-home orders, schools being closed, and WFH, you lost the main anchors. “As we got rid of those, it created problems for people as they decided to sleep, eat, and exercise whenever they wanted. The major inputs into our circadian rhythm were gone,” says Winter.
Experts call them zeitgebers. “Zeitgeber is a German word that literally means ‘time-giver,’” says researcher Philip Lewis, PhD of the University of Cologne in Germany. Each zeitgeber delivers timing cues to the body’s 24-hour clock, or circadian system. Zeitgebers include light exposure, exercise, and mealtimes, according to research. In a new study published in Chronobiology International, Lewis writes about how the pandemic has negatively impacted our circadian rhythms and why regular timing of everyday activity is needed to sync up your body clock.
“Our bodies naturally want to create rhythms for everything from hormone release to digestion, cognitive functioning, and athletic…
