Circadian Rhythms

To be filed under "Stuff We All Should Know"

We all have a built in biological clock. It does more than just make us feel crappy after we "spring forward" in early March. Among other things it controls:

• wakefulness
• sleep
• metabolism
• HR
• BP
• body temp
• etc.

Our daily patterns are set to a Circadian Rythm which cycles every 24 hrs. If we disrupt this cycle by just a smidge, like 1-3 hours, we'll feel it. Some of us feel it immediately. Others of us get a lag of several days, or even weeks.

Throwing your body out of it's normal rhythmic patterns is known to cause: 

• hot flashes
• chills
• stomach aches
• grogginess
• irritability
• and sudden bursts of energy followed by extreme fatigue.

We know the part of your brain where Circadian Rhythms live. It's in your supraschiasmatic nucleus (SCN). That's in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus seems to be fairly important to your health in that it regulates stuff like, body temperature, fluids/electrolytes, hunger, and hormone production. I'm not saying you couldn't get healthy without help from the hypothalamus, but if you were to fry the damn thing by screwing up your Circadian Rhythms hard and often - you might struggle a bit. 

The other thing we know is your SCN is connected to the retina of your eye. If it is dark, the SCN tells your body to secrete melatonin and make you peacefully sleepy. If it's light, the SCN inhibits melatonin production. Hint: if you are having trouble sleeping please ponder on the "darkness" thing you just learned. 

In the winter (assuming you live far from the equator), your SCN has developed a strange way of adapting to the longer periods of darkness. It produces melatonin in 2 stages. The first stage happens within a couple hours of sundown. Ever notice you get sleepy earlier in the winter? The other happens around 4 am. In the middle of all of that, there is a natural period of restful wakefulness. But there is a problem. In the developed world we don't go to bed earlier in the winter like our ancestors did. Instead of following our natural rhythms, most of us are just barely turning in right around our period of "restful wakefulness." This makes it harder to go to sleep in the winter. Ever notice?

Not getting enough sleep, or enough of the right kinds of sleep throws us out of our natural Circadian Rhythm. This can be one of the reasons why (for some of us) our fitness goes to hell in the winter. It is likely also a contributing factor to weight gain, irritability (who doesn't get a little pissy about gaining weight?) and general lethargy. It can also be why most of us get sick in the deep winter. 

Therefore one of the most important keys to obtaining good health & fitness seems to be: don't let your Circadian Rhythms get too far out of whack. If they do get out, get back back on track - ASAP. 

A couple more things to know: 

1. Circadian is Latin for "about one day." 
2. We sleep best when body temp is lowest. 
3. When your daily Circadian Rhythms peak, you are stronger and have a higher tolerance for pain. So maybe wait and try to only allow yourself to have catastrophic accidents later in the afternoon?     

The Sport of Fitness?

Many times during the month of July I was asked my thoughts on the new(ish) fitness competition that many of you are seeing on ESPN (the CrossFit Games). 

Not sure why anyone would value my opinion on the subject, much less seek it, but since you asked ...

It's impressive.
It's inspirational.
It's insane.
But, mostly it's just silly.

Competing to see who the very best exerciser in the world is, seems to miss the entire point of exercising in the first place, doesn't it?

I don't know about you, but I only have about FOUR reasons I engage in exercise in the first place. Here is that list in order of importance:

1 - To maintain my health
2 - To look and feel better
3 - To help me be a better dad
4 - To help me GSD (Get Sh** Done).

Maybe I could be talked into exercising for a couple other reasons, but that would be a short list. Along with my list of reasons why I WOULD exercise, I also have a list of reasons of why I would NOT exercise. Here is that list:

1 - To DOMINATE everyone in the room.
2 - To receive a trophy
3 - To display my perceived badassity
4 - To perpetuate even more exercise
5 - To become known as a great exerciser

I don't serve my fitness. IT SERVES ME. To reverse this breaks health.

The pianist who becomes obsessed with tuning and polishing his piano will never make beautiful music.

BTW - I'm not sure what the big deal is. There have always been exercise competitions. Frankly, I can't see much difference between the newest iteration of these and ones of the past. 

I'm Glad You're Sore!

I was standing in a checkout line (Christmas Shopping) at a local sports and fitness store this weekend. A lady behind me goes, "GPP!" 

How do you not turn around for that? 

I didn't recognize her (Shout out to my new friend from Ogden. I'm sorry I forgot your name. I'm lame.). It turns out we have never met. She follows us from off-site. Her SIL got her into us. It was fun to talk with her while waiting in line.

Our friendly chat continued into the parking lot where it took a nasty turn. While we were walking out of the doors, I noticed she was, sort of - gimping along.

"You busted up?" I asked.

"HELL yes, I'm busted! We did like 500 burpees this week! I can hardly move!" With that she gave me a rather aggressive push (it was REALLY a pulled punch) to the chest. I was shocked & confused - for a moment. Her language was thick with sarcasm, but there was a flash of REAL hostility in her eyes. Like, real enough that I quickly turned a hip to her for fear she was going to follow-up that chest thump with a nut shot. I'm positive it crossed her mind (Yours too?). 

Chuckling about the encounter on the way home, I started to slip into trainer mode. Why didn't I call her on that crap? Not the shove. That was funny. Why didn't I call her on allowing herself to become THAT sore? I should have told her, "You should NEVER allow yourself to become that sore." I should have said, "There is no fitness in beingSTUPID sore." Instead, I think I said something like (Read this next part in your best "derp" voice), "Oh, hahaha. Yep, sometimes these workouts can get you ..." 

As I drove along, I imagined it would have been so keen of me to take that moment and teach her about the rudiments and fundamentals of scaling. But I didn't. Why didn't I? I kept asking myself that. Then it occurred to me.    

Reminded me of the title. Hehe.

I'm glad she was so sore. 

"But Neil!" (a whiny voice from somewhere inside my head) "It's not safe."

I dunno. Anyone who has ever become successful at improving their health through exercise will tell you that "Gimping" is part of this process. It is a pipe dream to imagine otherwise. 

For the record: I don't advocate rookies throwing caution to the wind and just going for it. That would be stupid. Optimal Health requires more thought than that. It takes more hardening (mental & physical) than that. It takes more experience than that. Otherwise one can quickly go from "gimping" to permanently damaged. 

The most important part of working out is knowing: life's journey will take us each to terrible places we aren't comfortable being. These places are nasty, ROUGH and unyielding.  Having the health to withstand the pitfalls and challenges we have ahead of us will bless our lives, and the lives of those we love - beyond measure. On the flip-side we know: life's journey will also grant us extraordinarily wonderful benefits. Not having the health to fully reap these benefits will prevent us from blessing our lives and the lives of those we love - beyond measure. 

Forging our true capacity for avoiding pitfalls and reaping benefits isn't much different from forging the finest steel tools. To create the finest tool you must plunge raw steel (full of impurities) deep into the refiner's fire only to pull it back out and hammer it relentlessly. This must occur over and over again until every impurity is hammered out. It is a long process. Sometimes the fire is too hot. Sometimes the hammer bungs up the steel. But, even if we screw it up a little - it's cool. Just shove it back in the fire and go at it again.   

I'm sorry new friend from Ogden, but I'm glad you were sore. Not that I like seeing you in pain (much). More because I know being sore is part of the refining process. Please try to be careful, but just as importantly, keep heating it up and hammering it out.