How to Sync Up Your Biological Clock for Better Health, Sleep, Mood & Performance | Lynne Peeples

Are you constantly feeling tired, unfocused, and out of sync? Discover the hidden power of your body's inner clock in this fascinating discussion with Lynne Peeples, author of The Inner Clock: Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms https://amzn.to/3Casz9X. Explore how modern lifestyles disrupt our innate circadian rhythms that govern sleep, metabolism, cognitive performance and more. Learn practical strategies to realign your circadian clock through light exposure, meal timing, and consistency. Unlock better health, productivity and overall well-being by living in harmony with your body's natural rhythms. You can find Lynne at: Website https://lynnepeeples.com/ | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lynne.peeples/ | Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/mastering-your-circadian-rhythms-the-power-of-your-bodys-internal-clocks-lynne-peeples If you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Charlie Gilkey https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/NjYxNmQ2NTFmZmRiNTgwMDE2ODhmM2Qz about syncing up with natural rhythms to get more of the right things done. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel https://jonathanfields.substack.com/aboutVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sponsors/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Research shows that your awareness is going to follow a circadian rhythm. There are certain hours of the day that your brain is just primed to work faster. And similarly for your, your muscles and the other elements that affect your speed and your strength and your endurance. And this depends on your personal body clocks. So again, that chronotype curve, depending on where you fall on that, those hours of the day might be different. When we throw our circadian system out of whack, so many potential health repercussions can come and signs are linking more and more to circadian disruption. Metabolism, digestion, our immune system, our ability to be alert, all these things are tied to our circadian clocks.

• 0:45Jonathan Fields?

  So have you ever had one of those days where nothing seems to click? Your mind is foggy, your energy is zapped, everything feels like an uphill battle. And then on the flip side, I'm sure you can recount periods where you were just simply firing on all cylinders, razor sharp focus, boundless energy reserves, able to handle stress, solving problems with ease and operating at your peak. What if I told you the difference doesn't necessarily come down to luck or willpower or how smart you are, or how hard you work, that we each have a powerful internal clockwork, regulating our physical, emotional and cognitive capacities in a cycle. And when we live in harmony with this inner timekeeper, we unlock all of this powerful capacity.

• 1:27Jonathan Fields?

  But when it falls out of sync, everything becomes an uphill battle. So maybe you often drag in the mornings, no matter the sleep that you've had, hit an afternoon slump, or surge with energy in the late evening as others wind down. These are hints that your circadian rhythms, your body's biological clocks, may be misaligned with the choices you're making, the way you're living your life and the way you're even working. My guest today understands these rhythms intimately. Lynn Peoples is an award winning science journalist who has pulled back the curtain on these powerful inner timekeepers. Before becoming a writer, she spent years as a biostatician, analyzing data from HIV and environmental health studies. She's the author of The Illuminating

• 2:10Jonathan Fields?

  Book The Inner Clock, Living in Sync With Our Circadian Rhythms, Taking Us On A Fascinating Journey Into The Master Clocks Ticking Inside Nearly Every Cell In Our Bodies. In our conversation, we dive into the surprising power of these biological rhythms. You learn just how intricately your natural circadian rhythms govern everything from your metabolism and immune function to your cognitive abilities and physical performance. We unpack the myriad of ways our modern lives unwittingly disrupt these rhythms, often to our detriment, and you'll also discover simple yet profound adjustments that you can make to resync your days and nights with your inner clock's natural cadence. So excited to share this conversation with you.

• 2:54Jonathan Fields?

  I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

• 3:03Speaker 02

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• 3:36Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by Steel. So I am not in the studio today. I'm actually out on the trail in the Rockies at about 6,000 feet above sea level in Boulder. The leaves are exploding with color and it's just stunning out. And yes, I'm wearing my favorite Steel hat. And just last night, I was wearing one of my favorite Steel jackets, which, if you know me, is not unusual. I wear the hat almost every day, and my Steel jackets pretty much live on me all fall and winter. There's even a Steel shop back in town, practically in my backyard. Here is why I love them. Steel is designed and tested in Jackson Hole at the base of the Tetons by locals who ski and bike and hike and climb and fish there pretty much every day. They have been at it since 2011, so they know warmth and

• 4:20Jonathan Fields?

  They also know style, everything I have from them. It works great, it holds up in every condition and also looks awesome. And their hometown down is 800 filled down, but it feels more like just your favorite hoodie than a puffy. And ski season is almost here, so gear up now the way that the locals do. Go to stio.com/goodlife for 20% off your order. That's S T I O dot com slash good life. stio.com/goodlife, stio designed and tested in Jackson Hole. Good Life Project is supported by Ernesto rugs. So a small confession, our front porch has been the most neglected corner of our homes since we moved in. It's the first thing anyone steps onto and it's been kind of greeting people with a sad, too small mat.

• 5:02Jonathan Fields?

  Ernesto sent me their samples and now they're making us a rug. And the cool thing is for $10, you get five oversized 12 by 12 samples. So you see the colors at real scale in your own space before you even get it. So we lived with all five colors for a few days and cool morning light and golden afternoon light. And we're sure to be rossling the sky, but Caldwell just kind of kept quietly winning. The thing you're certain about isn't always the thing that fits. And because Ernesto rugs are custom sized, cut to the ins. The one we ordered is made to our exact six and a half feet by nine feet space, not close enough. Visit ernesto.com and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 toward any rug of your choice.

• 5:45Jonathan Fields?

  That's E R N E S T A dot com. I've been fascinated with the notion of how we function, how our body regulates itself, how we get into dysregulation. And the whole idea of us having, you know, one or a collection of sort of internal body clocks. And I would imagine a lot of people have heard the phrase, they don't know body clock or circadian rhythm, but really don't know what it is or what it means or like how it functions in the body. So I feel like maybe that's a good starting point for us. When we talk about a body clock or a circadian rhythm, what are we actually talking about?

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're actually talking about a lot of clocks. So our bodies are filled with trillions of tiny timekeepers. Nearly every cell in your body has a clock. And these clocks are designed, evolution created these clocks, to work in coordination with each other. So that like all your body systems are doing the right things at the right times. That's, you know, metabolize your food, digest, metabolize your food. It's when you sleep, it's when your body should be most, put up its defenses highest for invading pathogens, ultraviolet radiation, when you're strongest and fastest. So all these physiological ebbs and flows throughout the day are part of your circadian rhythm.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  And you have one, you have a master clock in the brain. Master in quotes, because there's some new evidence suggesting that our other clocks can work on their own. But in general, that clock is coordinating this whole symphony. So it's sort of the conductor of this symphony of clocks throughout the body.

• 7:17Jonathan Fields?

  If we could go maybe one layer deeper, how does this actually work? I mean, because it seems wildly complex. You know, you've got like each cell has its own little mini clock. And then you've got this one thing sitting on top where it says, okay, like, like, like I am the ultimate time setter for everything. But like, my mind just goes, how, like, how does this all actually get coordinated inside?

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Right. I mean, the scientists are still unraveling all these mysteries. But we're, we've got a pretty good picture. And it's only within the last, you know, two, three decades that we're really piecing this together. But those clocks, of course, is metaphorical, but it's really these genes, you know, creating these proteins and these feedback loops. That loop around 24, take about 24 hours a day to do their, their loop. And that circa in circadian actually references the fact, well, circa means about or around. So these clocks do not tick at precisely 24 hours a day. We all tick differently and our bodies filled with these, these clocks that may, you know, not tick exactly the same either.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  So this is why it is so critical for us to regularly calibrate those clocks to. The 24 hour earth day by getting cues from nature. So primarily light and dark. That is why it's well, one of the many reasons why we have thrown our rhythms out of whack in modern society by beating doors and such. But yeah, so we have the molecular details are still being fully elaborated on, but we, we have the basics. We know what main genes are involved here that create these feedback loops. And then we know in general that clock in the brain, which receives input from the eyes, from a photoreceptor that we've only recently discovered.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  So we learned about rods and cones in school, right? But now we know there's this third photoreceptor that doesn't have anything to do with what you see or the picture created by your rods and cones, but actually just takes input from the wavelengths and the intensity of light and sends that to this master clock in the brain, which then deciphers that information to figure out the time of day and passes that, that memo along to the clocks throughout the body.

• 9:32Jonathan Fields?

  And we're going to get into how light affects all these systems also a lot, but you mentioned genes, which makes me wonder is sort of like the way that your clock is wound heritable. So like if my mom is a night owl or if you know, like my like grandfather or grandma, it like was somebody who, you know, like really came alive at 3am and then you know, would work until 6am and that was just completely natural for them. Is this something that maybe can get passed down through genetics through, it can be inherited?

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Yes, it can. Absolutely. This is a genetic predetermined biological feature that we are born with. However, it's somewhat malleable. So it's genes. I mean, you know, gene and environment are at play in a lot of aspects of our health. But, but genes are, are there. So yeah, if you have mother, father, grandparent with a certain predilection to be up late or wake up early, you're more likely to have that. And then that can be influenced by your behavior and your exposures. So you know, you can kind of exacerbate your night owlness based on how you interact with light, dark.

• 10:39Jonathan Fields?

  Are you aware of research that looks at sort of like how much is genetic versus how much is changeable? I'm thinking immediately of the research on happiness over time, where I think it's often commonly agreed now in the research that a certain amount, like there's a kind of like a happiness set point that most people have that we tend to revert to no matter what we do. And about 50, 40, 50% of that, from the research I've seen, is sort of like says, there's a genetic element to this set point. It kind of like, this is where your genes say you revert to. But on the one hand, that's a little bit fatalistic. It's like, ah, it's my genes. But on the other hand, there's the other 50% that says, there's a lot I can do in my life that actually can raise it. But it also means that maybe you need to keep doing it.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely. I think, I mean, I don't know what the exact percentage is. I don't know that anybody does. Who I do know that there's, you know, there's ample research now talking about how if you, so chronotype refers to how your clocks are ticking, kind of the, the period or how long they tick and how they orient themselves with the sun. So kind of your, your sort of tethered to the sun is that, you know, are you oriented earlier or late compared to when the, when the light's out? And that chronotype curve, so where you land on that, if you're at the early bird and night owl, and that's been kind of spread out in modern society. So your genetic predisposition, you know, might

• 12:01Speaker 00

  be within a relatively narrow range, but the way, you know, we've, we've disrupted our rhythms, we've really spread that out. So don't know the exact percentage, but we, there's definitely a large component that we are influencing with our behavior and kind of the way society is pressuring our lives, our day to day lives, too.

• 12:21Jonathan Fields?

  Right. On the one hand, if our genes can affect our, that, that chronotype, that internal clock, you also write that the clock also exerts a certain amount of control over, I think you said something like 50% of our genes?

• 12:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's getting at the idea of our physiology is very rhythmic. And, I mean, this gets to why when we throw our circadian system out of whack, so many potential health repercussions can come. And scientists are linking more and more to circadian disruption. So yeah, metabolism, digestion, our immune system, our ability to be alert, all these things are tied to our circadian clocks.

• 13:06Jonathan Fields?

  And I would imagine also, I mean, I've heard things like the, you know, your bodies, like certain elements of nutrition, so like, like blood glucose, insulin, that it's, you know, we tend to think about that, well, okay, so there may be a genetic element if you're actually sort of like heading towards type one diabetes, but there's a huge behavioral and lifestyle element to it, you know, it's about, I have to really understand what goes into me. But, you know, like, it sounds like also, when you think about, you know, how your body responds from a blood glucose, from an insulin level, from things like this, there may be like, like a clock element to this as well.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So that gets into, now, it's not only like what you put into your body, but when. So as far as food goes and medicine goes, your insulin levels, they're, they're regulated to be primed to handle sugar at certain times of day. And that is not at night. We, research shows that, you know, your, your insulin is ready, you know, more middle of the day. So that points to, that's when we should be consuming the most carbohydrates, calories that would, that the insulin can take care of. So absolutely, there's a rhythm to the day. I actually wore a glucose monitor myself as part of one of my experiments, so I could kind of see how those responses actually work inside.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  And it's, it's, yeah, it's definitely depending on the time of day, your organs, your body systems, your hormone levels, these various physiological adaptations to what is to be expected at different times of day in the body.

• 14:35Jonathan Fields?

  I did a similar experiment myself. I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor, and I just ran a ton of experiments while I was running, and, you know, eat the same food at different times of day. And it's fascinating to see how your body responds differently to it. And granted, it's kind of hard to rule out other, you know, confounding variables, your level of stress and this and that. But if you do it enough times, you start to see patterns, you're like, oh, this is really interesting. There's something happening inside of me that I wasn't, like, maybe I've heard, you know, maybe people even told me about, but I'm like, sure, sure, sure.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 15:04Jonathan Fields?

  And then you look at the numbers, like, oh, this is actually real.

• 15:07Speaker 00

  I mean, I hadn't really thought about it that much, but then I started to notice, yeah, indeed, I feel the effects, right? I mean, I feel that more of that kind of post-meal slump, for example, at a certain time of day from the same meal. And you can see the kind of the corresponding numbers from the data. It's fascinating.

• 15:24Jonathan Fields?

  One of the things you also sort of tied to the body clock, and you talk about the notion of of us having certain windows, you know, under the umbrella of sort of power hours, right? And both in terms of cognitive performance and physical performance, and how the body clock actually affects both of those. So take me into this a bit.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is fascinating. Your body, again, you have all these systems peaking at different hours of the day. And so research shows that your awareness is going to follow a circadian rhythm. There is certain hours of the day that your brain is just primed to work faster. And similarly, for your your muscles and the other elements that, you know, affect your speed and your strength and your endurance. And this depends on your personal body clocks. So again, that chronotype curve I was talking about, depending on where you fall on that, those hours of the day might be different. But on average, research shows that, for example, athletic performance peaks in the late afternoon or early evening for most people on average. And that's when, you know, world records are most likely to be broken

• 16:26Speaker 00

  and may give an edge to certain teams based on, you know, maybe their time zone if they've traveled across the country for a game. So interesting implications there. And similarly, for our productivity, you know, maybe our work performance. You know, I kind of did a little experiment of trying to pay attention on days when I didn't get up with an alarm clock, let myself just kind of go through my day and see when I felt more productive, again, kind of over time. And I found my sweet spot is, you know, late morning is when I'm most on and most productive. So I started doing most of my writing, for example, during those hours. And then, you know, I would slump in the mid-afternoon, which is pretty common among a lot of us. We think about that post-lunch dip,

• 17:07Speaker 00

  which is not only a consequence of that meal settling in. It can be that's part of it, but it's also our circadian rhythm. So maybe there are certain times of day that, yeah, you do a lot to less rigorous activities or, you know, like emailing or doing the dishes, for example.

• 17:25Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, it's so interesting also, the way you say like, there are sort of like common windows, like, most people fall under this. And I found I'm a little bit of an outlier to those windows.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah?

• 17:35Jonathan Fields?

  Because for years, as a writer, people are like, okay, so here's what you have to do. Like, all quote, real writers, serious writers, like, you get up first thing in the morning, before anyone is up, you know, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00 a.m., and then you bang out your two or three hours. Like, that is the most productive time. That's where everything is magical. And on and off for years, I would try and do that. And eventually, I'm just like, no, like, this actually doesn't work for me. And then that slump, you know, when most people are like, yeah, 3:00 to 5:00, I'm worthless, you know, where in theory, like, that is where most people cognitively, you're kind of not at your, your peak.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:09Jonathan Fields?

  I am.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  Wow, yeah.

• 18:11Jonathan Fields?

  I'll write from 2:00 to 5:00, or 2:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon, and I'm just, I can drop into a zone and have really good work come out of me. But if I try and write sort of like, early in the morning, it's just like, I'm banging my head against the wall. It's just not really working. And I think it speaks to what you were saying also, like, the importance of, start with the generalities, but you've really got to run your own experiments.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah. And it's, it's hard to do our own experiments for a lot of people, right? Because society, families, schedules, really regiment when you do what. And it's hard to know what your body really wants to do. When we wake up with an alarm clock, and we, you know, gotta get the kids to school, crazy early hours, all these things kind of get in the way of really understanding where, where we fall. So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's different for all.

• 18:59Jonathan Fields?

  And this is something, this is research I've seen before, and it's something that you write about also. It's this notion of, even sort of like, understanding, I'm fortunate, I control my day, to a large extent. But a lot of folks, like, work in organizations where they don't. You're like, there's a 9:00 to 5:00 or an 8:00 to 6:00 or whatever, whatever it is these days. And if you're somebody where you kind of don't click on, like, you know, at full steam until a little bit later, but the workday for you starts at 8:00 a.m., or if you're a student, and a lot of students are getting to class, and like, it's like, 7:00 and something in the morning now, and your brains don't work that way, that can be a brutal experience.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah, the student, the middle and high school students that still widely, like you said, are forced to get to school before seven thirty or eight. I mean, at that point in your life, as an adolescent, your circadian rhythms are actually drifting later, like two, three hours. So even if you're maybe genes are programmed to be somewhat night owl-ish, you know, it's probably still way too early. So very, very few of those students in class are at all ready to be learning or having gotten enough rest. And yeah, for the rest of us, you know, older in the working world, absolutely. I feel like it's, well, the science suggests, not just how I feel, that we are, both the employee and the employer are losing out. So your employer is losing out on those productive hours that they could be getting from their employee,

• 20:20Speaker 00

  both because maybe they're sleep deprived, but also they're not working at their prime hours. Or maybe during their prime hours, they're forced to be in a meeting. So there are workplaces in, um, most, well, most of the ones that I discovered writing my book are in Europe that have adopted more of a circadian rhythm, I guess, respect for the employers and their chronotypes and trying to take that into account to maximize productivity for everyone.

• 20:46Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. Do you have a sense for, you know, the last four years we've seen, um, first there's a really big pendulum swing to remote work and now it's kind of swinging back to return to office. And then people are kind of finding their middle ground, depending on who you are and where you're working. But are you seeing that, like sort of like whether you're working in an office under fixed hours or working at home, kind of like affecting, being affected by this as well?

• 21:07Speaker 00

  Well, I know that, I mean, COVID seems to have opened up more possibility, right? It helped a lot of employers see that, I mean, maybe this isn't across the board, but a lot saw that they could still get good productivity from their, their workers and perhaps even more and perhaps less, you know, a few sick days. Cause well, he's finally had a chance to really feel out their rhythms and kind of go with what their body actually wanted to do. And I think, yeah, we are seeing a bit more of that shift back to the office, but I think on the, it seems to be more awareness for that. And I don't know. I mean, this is like, I guess, part of why I get this message I mean, we have sort of a sweet spot here, a nice window of opportunity to try to take

• 21:49Speaker 00

  advantage of that societal trend and hopefully doesn't swing completely back. Or maybe, you know, there's, everybody goes to the office, but it's go, you know, during the window, best for you. I mean, that's another thing that some workplaces have taken into account is just, yeah, some people swing into the office at 11 a.m. Some are coming in at 6 a.m. Have those important meetings in the middle of the day when people overlap.

• 22:12Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. Oh, that's really interesting. I hadn't really heard that, but it's, it would actually make sense to say, hey, listen, like, we're gonna have a return to office, like, you know, like, maybe there's a mandate, you know, you gotta be here three days a week. But if you do your best work or your life schedule makes it so that, you know, like, you function where, you know, you're here at 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. or something like that, and somebody else gets there at 10:30 and works until 7, that's okay. That's really interesting. Like, if we start to see that happen, sort of like, and letting people accommodate both their lifestyles, but also that their internal clocks and their ability to really be most engaged and have their brains working optimally.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Exactly. And the, you know, the results is, again, this is, you know, relatively small sample size so far, but they're finding workplace satisfaction, you know, jumped much higher productivity. I mean, everybody seems pretty happy with this scheduling and flexibility.

• 23:03Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 23:09Jonathan Fields?

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• 23:53Jonathan Fields?

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• 24:10Jonathan Fields?

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• 25:12Speaker 02

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 25:46Jonathan Fields?

  Really figuring out your body clock and aligning your work from a physical or cognitive performance level is important. What about mental health? Like, what's the relationship between the circadian rhythms of body clock and mental health?

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's a lot of interesting connections and more being made all the time. And obviously, the first that comes to mind that we've probably heard about is seasonal affective disorder. That's real, and certain populations are more prone to it. There definitely seems to be, you know, a strong correlation with further latitudes or higher latitudes, change shifting, day Length throughout the year affecting the circadian rhythm. And ultimately, you know, one consequence of that is a greater risk of having that seasonal affected disorder, which points to some, you know, important treatments or treatment options, trying to get that replaced that light in the morning, for example. There's also fascinating research linking like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and

• 26:41Speaker 00

  some of these things with circadian disruption and kind of this two way street where, for example, if, you know, somebody's struggling with one of these mental health disorders and, you know, they may be more likely to stay indoors and stay up light with light, miss the morning sun, which is so crucial to to recalibrate our clocks. And then that kind of causes this vicious spiral, right? So it exacerbates their symptoms and kind of gets stuck in this pattern. So there's researchers looking into that. And again, also linking some of the treatments for these conditions, thinking about how those are actually affecting our circadian rhythm and how like that might be the part

• 27:22Speaker 00

  of at least the pathway of how they work and why they don't work for everyone because it depends on your own personal circadian rhythm for how that medication interacts. And also perhaps the time of day you take that medication. So it's making things more complicated in some ways, but also pointing to some interesting potential solutions.

• 27:41Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, even sort of like if you ran experiments and saying, okay, so let me try, you know, if you've been like prescribed something, medication or intervention, like what happens if I do this at nine AM? What happens if I do it noon? What happens if I do it at four or before I go to bed and seeing is like, is there a noticeable difference? Are you aware of any studies that are actually tracking that?

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I talked to several researchers. I have a chapter that gets into circadian medicine. And, you know, one that stood out to me was the first US based clinical trial, circadian chronotherapy, so we kind of call the timing of treatment to to getting rhythms for glioblastoma. So there's a drug that kind of the standard treatment, which was FDA approved for because it extended life on average about two and a half months. Well, there are researchers. We're finding based on a retrospective trial that was done that this drug taken in the morning versus later in the day had a different effect on survival of three and a half months. So if you take it like earlier in the day, it's gonna perhaps prolong your life on average of three and a half months compared to if you took it later in the day.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  That's more than the FDA granted approval for the drug. So it was a pretty significant effect. And that, again, that was retrospective. So they're doing a prospective clinical trial right now to really kind of get in on what's, if that's really happening. But this is, we're finding similar things over and over with, you know, blood pressure drugs, migraine treatments, arthritis treatments. At the time of day, could have a profound effect on the effectiveness. And the side effects of many medications and treatments, surgeries, even the time of day you have that surgery could have an impact on the outcomes. Fascinating.

• 29:21Jonathan Fields?

  Which like makes it that much more important that we understand like what our own personal body clock is telling us, what our circadian rhythm is. And other than trying to figure out when am I thinking best? When am I sort of like feel most athletically alive? Like, is there any sort of standardized, like this kind of works for every one way for somebody to figure out what their circadian rhythm is?

• 29:45Speaker 00

  We're getting closer to that. As part of fire research for the book, I took part in a few different tests of my own circadian rhythms. And one was spitting into test tubes like hourly for many hours through the

• 29:59Jonathan Fields?

  That sounds fun.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Through the night, so fun, so fun. And then, yeah, very brave, kind scientist, you know, took that and it took forever to analyze it, looking for melatonin levels. So at the onset of when your melatonin should naturally rise, which is a couple hours before bedtime, you can see actually when it starts to rise and how fast. So that is one kind of gold standard that we've used for a long time. But again, yeah, it's not fun. It's intensive, time consuming, you know, ultimately expensive because of all this. But scientists are coming up with some pretty interesting, more, less invasive, faster means of, of coming up with what, reading your clocks. And there's now, we're thinking About rapid blood tests and I also pluck hairs from my head and I'm looking at hair

• 30:45Speaker 00

  roots to determine where my clocks are at as well. So that's one angle researchers are going with. There's like kind of taking just a sample of your skin and getting some of them metabolites, you know, that come off of your skin that are they're looking into that. So there's research that's getting us closer to potentially one day, let's say you arrive at a hospital, doctor could do a quick test to determine where your circadian rhythms are at and then use that information to more optimally personalize that medicine based on time.

• 31:15Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, that's wild, especially because as you described, you look at the typical prescription label and it's like, well, like, take this once a day.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:24Jonathan Fields?

  But like if the efficacy changes dramatically based on the time that you take it, it can be huge.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. And especially if it's a short acting drug, right? Because some of these are long acting drugs. So I mean, there's nuances here. But yeah, absolutely. For a great portion of drugs, the most common drugs that we have in use today, scientists have found that there appears to be a time of day effect. So a lot of potential here.

• 31:48Jonathan Fields?

  One of the curiosity, and then I kind of want to drop into like what breaks the cycle here. But you mentioned earlier that adolescents, that their circadian rhythms are like on a general level pushes back a couple of hours. So do these tend to change just for an individual based on the season of life?

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. On average, we're all our rhythm is our changing. So all our rhythms are different. And then even for ourselves, like it's going to be different when we're a kid versus older. So when we're younger, usually we lean a little early on average. I mean, I think every parent probably knows that kid is up pretty early before they want to be up. And then it's like, yeah, adolescent age drift later. And then at some point in your twenties, shifting back. And then as we get older, might shift early again. And the bigger thing that happens when we're older is we also, we lose a lot of that robustness of our rhythm, kind of dampens, which some really great research looking into what can we do about that to help as we get older?

• 32:49Speaker 00

  That robustness of our rhythms and the implications there for our long-term health and longevity, which is really interesting. So yeah, they're shifting throughout our lives. So again, that's kind of our genes at work, at play, as well as our environment. Because also, there's a certain period of time in our life where we're again, more regimented with our schedule. And then retirement hits, maybe we're able to finally live by our rhythms again.

• 33:12Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. You mentioned that one of the ways that you can start to test this is measuring melatonin levels. So I have heard that as we age, that once we start hitting our 30s, like slowly, that like, you know, that melatonin, which helps us fall asleep and stay asleep, that the body starts to produce less and less and less to the time when you're in your 60s, 70s and 80s, there's a really substantial drop in that. So I guess my curiosity is, which, which I think leads to a lot of struggles for a lot of people, or shortened sleep, or less deep sleep, or fitful sleep. Is there a sense for whether, is the circadian rhythm affecting melatonin production in a way

• 33:53Jonathan Fields?

  that makes it produce less? Or is our body naturally producing less melatonin that then affects the circadian rhythm? Or is it kind of impossible that tells it like a chicken and egg thing?

• 34:02Speaker 00

  That's a really good question. I actually don't have an answer for that one. Yeah, it might be a bit of a chicken or egg. I think, you know, a lot of our, our body systems and hormone levels are just get weaker over time. And in addition to the melatonin dropping potentially, we're also, as we get older, we get cataracts and they actually filter out a lot of the blue light intensity that we need to cue our clocks to day and night. So there's a lot of things kind of going against us as we get older, which is why it is all the more important to do everything we can to support our rhythms by, as I was saying, we'll get into this momentarily, but getting those some important cues to really try to keep our clocks in alignment.

• 34:44Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, that's one thing that could potentially sort of like dysregulate your these the body clock, these circadian rhythms. Let's talk about some of the other ways that this happens because, you know, there's a whole section in your book where you talk about like how this whole thing falls apart, you know? Because for many of us, if not most of us, there are so many influences, so many things that kind of break the body clock. And we've talked about how important it is to actually really understand it and work with it. So take me into this a little bit. You know, you've mentioned a number of times the notion of external light. So how does this work for us, but also against us in different ways?

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. So our clocks are craving that intense light, particularly of the blue wavelength part of the spectrum during the day. That's how we evolved, right? Outside, getting that daylight. Unfortunately, indoors, where we spend 90 plus percent of our time, we've got these artificial lights, which to our visual system are fine. Like, we can see it seems bright, but our circadian system is separate. I mean, it works a little bit with our visual system, but our third photoreceptor that we have that we've recently discovered, that's not a Rarocun, it is taking that information, you know, and sending it straight to our master clock. It's not having anything to do with our visual system, but it requires

• 36:02Speaker 00

  brighter light and particularly of the blue wavelengths to register that information to the brain. And it's our indoor lighting environment is rarely giving that to us. Fortunately, there's technology that's getting better and better that is getting us closer to mimicking daylight to do that work. But unless we're right by a window during the day, which I mean, I'm very fortunate, like I do have my big window right next to my, my desk, but probably majority of people don't have that privilege. It may be, I mean, this is also becomes an equity issue. There's a lot of people that, you know, work in basements or back of house spaces or, or the night shift, and they're not getting that access to light during the day. You know, there's things of what we can all individually do, like make sure we try to get outside for 15, 20 minutes first thing in the morning

• 36:47Speaker 00

  because that morning light is particularly powerful and helpful to recalibrate our clocks. But light throughout the day is also beneficial. And the more we get of that, the more protected we are from light at night as well, which is when we don't want light, right? At night, we want to cut our lighting indoors. We want to especially the blue wavelengths, dim everything, make it warm. So our body gets the message that it is night. We're getting close to bedtime.

• 37:15Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And I'm thinking also, I'm in Colorado, so we're heading into fall and it feels like probably pretty soon into winter.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  Great.

• 37:24Jonathan Fields?

  The days get a lot shorter, you know, we lose hours from the day and it gets cold outside. So you just, you know, natural, well, actually, people will hike here in the most insane weather.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Good for them.

• 37:37Jonathan Fields?

  I have learned this about this amazing town and I've become one of them. But, um, you know, for a lot of folks, like as soon as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, you're just, you know, whether it's part of your job or not, you're just not outside anymore. You're just, you go from indoor to indoor to indoor. And I would imagine that that seasonality, like living in a place where winter is cold and short, that has an effect on this too.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's sad irony, but winter time, those short days is when it's all the more important to get outside. Cause your window of opportunity for daylight is shrinking. And I mean, here in Seattle, we're even, yeah, the days even get shorter, higher latitude. And I think we have more cloud cover than you. So, but even when it's cloudy out, it is despite how it might appear to our visual system from indoors. It's, you know, you're getting way more good information to the master clock outdoors than indoors. So, yeah, I mean, I guess one of the big lessons I learned from reporting this book is, yeah, bundle up to everything you need to get outside and get those photons during the day, particularly in the winter. And if you need to, like, when the days are really short,

• 38:45Speaker 00

  you can artificially extend the day with, with really powerful artificial light, like a sad lamp. Talk to scientists that, yeah, kind of recreated their day, even if the sun hasn't risen yet, make it rise to those third photoreceptors in the eye.

• 38:58Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. So that's where you see like these full spectrum lights. I give you that blue light there. So you can get that first thing in the morning.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 39:04Jonathan Fields?

  I'm curious also, you described this third receptor in the eye as the key thing that like you get light into that and that helps like really sync up with your circadian rhythms and keep them in sync. Are you aware of whether we have any kind of photoreceptors in our skin that do a similar thing?

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Another fascinating line of research is investigating that right now. We're finding these various photoreceptors potentially all over the body, at least these photopigments. So yes, there is some evidence at this point that the skin has these photoreceptors and in fact, they might ignore messages from the master clock if they're able to, you know, get the message directly from the sun, right? Which makes sense evolutionarily because they're, that's the first line of defense, right? For protecting yourself from ultraviolet radiation. So if it knows that it's, uh oh, sun is potentially doing damage, you know, like that's where if they can set the clock right and get their defenses up quickly, there's a benefit to that. So this is an evolving area of research. Now things could change in the next year or two,

• 40:06Speaker 00

  but there's more evidence that there's more going on than we thought.

• 40:10Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, that'd be fascinating. And it would make sense, right? Because we know that we have photoreceptors in our skin that help our bodies produce vitamin D. This is one of the primary sources in our body and that the latest recommendation, some that I've seen, is that you might sort of like reconsider how you approach using sunscreen in winter climates because of the relationship between vitamin D production in your body or supplementation, whatever it is that makes sense to you. But like, that would be really interesting to see if we also have photoreceptors in our skin that come their own mini master clocks and sort of like help us with the circadian rhythm.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 40:47Jonathan Fields?

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 40:52Jonathan Fields?

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• 41:37Jonathan Fields?

  go into something that actually feels good. You get more room, a little extra money, and maybe a closet that reflects who you are right now. So see what's hiding in your closet. You might be surprised how much you can earn with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees, so you keep everything you earn. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall, that cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high

• 42:17Jonathan Fields?

  gear. When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2% daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Good Life Project is sponsored by Bumbus. So my wife Stephanie has been one of the great gift givers in our family, and her secret is that the best gifts often aren't the flashy ones. They're the ones that people reach for on any given day without even thinking about

• 43:00Jonathan Fields?

  it. That's why so much of my list ends up at Bumbus. Fuzzy Sunday slippers for the friend who lives in sweatpants from November to March, merino wool and cashmere blend socks for anyone who runs cold. That would be me, by the way. Ski and running socks for the ones who refuse to slow down. Also me, by the way. And water-resistant suede booties. So cushy. My executive producer, Lindsay, actually more or less lives in hers. And here's what else. Makes it a good life kind of gift for every item you purchase. Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchased, one donated over 200 million donations and counting. So every gift you give is really two. So head over to bombas.com/goodlife and use the code goodlife for 20% off your first purchase.

• 43:45Jonathan Fields?

  That's B O M B A S dot com slash goodlife code goodlife at checkout. So you mentioned also this notion of nighttime light. So we're talking about, okay, so we want to get outside or we've got to in some way get blue light into us early in the day, midday. And that helps us stay on track with our body clocks. What about nighttime? Because this is where I hear all sorts of things about, you know, like I see biohackers wearing their, you know, like blue blockers and their amber lenses. And you know, I have like an app that, you know, takes the blue light out of my screen on my computer. And sometimes I'm just like, does this really matter?

• 44:20Speaker 00

  There are a lot of tools out there. I think they all have a place and they all can help. I think from what I've gathered from the scientists, the most important thing is to just turn off the lights or dim them. I mean, I was amazed at how little light I really needed to see and see pretty well. I mean, our eyes adapt to darker environments. So yes, I mean, you can wear blue light blocking glasses. I do sometimes, especially if I like do have to work late and I'm in front of a screen. I will dim the screen. I'll take advantage of the blue light filter technology too. I did some tests with a spectrometer to kind of tell how much light I was really getting, especially that would affect the circadian rhythm. And, you know, to be on the safe side, might as well throw it all on.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  But is it necessary all the time? Probably not. I mean, if you can dim things enough and if you can just work with, you know, table lamps, especially if you have a warmer colored bulb. I also have, I've just spread a bunch of electric candles around my apartment that I can like turn on with a remote. And what gives a really warm, like cozy glow. And again, enough light for me to see what I'm doing. If I have to read, maybe I'll use like a reading light. But other than that, it's, you know, it's plenty for what I need in the evening, isn't it? And it helps me wind down. I do feel more prepared to go to bed and go to sleep. And the last few hours of the day like that.

• 45:43Jonathan Fields?

  So is the risk that if we keep the lights bright and there's blue light that's a part of that either from our overhead lights or from screens? And so many of us are on screens like literally way too late in the evening. That basically unsyncs like the master clock that it kind of disrupts those rhythms and all the bodily functions, all the health related functions, the cognitive functions that they get out of whack because now we're effectively disrupting the master clock, which controls all these different functions. And who knows what the ripple effect that'll be?

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Basically, right. I mean, it's telling the master clock that it's still daytime. So it's delaying that onset of the melatonin rise that we need to really trigger that cascade of other effects that happens to help us go to sleep. And it also has a directly energizing effect. So light has many ways in which it affects our physiology. So it's the circadian system as well as this energizing effect of the light. And again, it's important to note that it, light doesn't even need to have blue in it. Blue is most powerful and it's what our third photoreceptor really keys in on. But any light bright enough can have the same effect. You just need more, more photons of those other wavelengths to have that impact on us. Yeah.

• 46:58Jonathan Fields?

  Okay. What about stimulants? And I'm thinking in particular of the single biggest stimulant in the world, caffeine.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Uh huh. It sticks around in the body a really long time. I have certainly adopted, trying to be disciplined about keeping my coffee to, you know, in the morning hours. I'm trying not to have too much. I still have like two cups in the morning, which is probably more than I should. You know, there's a balance to life. But yeah, the later you, you take it in, you know, the longer it'll be in your system and it can derail sleep for sure. It's gonna take it harder to fall asleep and, and affect your ability to get deep sleep through the night.

• 47:32Jonathan Fields?

  Is that simply because there's a stimulating effect? Or is a stimulant actually doing something to disrupt the circadian rhythm, the body clock in some meaningful way?

• 47:40Speaker 00

  It's a combination of things. It's effect on what's called the sleep. Homeostat, you've got this other system that's affecting your sleep, right? It's the circadian system's working with this sleep homeostat. It's based on you, like you can build up this thing called adenosine in your body throughout the course of the day, which builds kind of your sleepiness. And caffeine attaches to the same receptors as that adenosine. And so it kind of masks your sleepiness. This way, it has its, you know, it's kind of stimulating effect during the day. But it's sort of messing with that, that other system as well. If you have that in your system too long. And then yeah, other research showing that it can also wreak its own havoc on circadian clocks as well.

• 48:23Jonathan Fields?

  Right. So that's the most common, I want to call it over the counter stimulant.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  Yes, fair to say.

• 48:31Jonathan Fields?

  But, but there are also pharmaceutical things and increasingly, you know, like it's fascinating to me. I've been kind of curious about, you know, there's been a, a mass increase in diagnosis of adults in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties with ADD, ADHD. And one of the things that is often prescribed for this is some form of stimulant, whether it's Adderall or something else. There's a wide range of different things and it affects people very differently. Can those types of pharma-based products also affect circadian rhythm?

• 49:00Speaker 00

  You know, I don't have a clear answer on that one. That is a really good question. My hunch is probably, but I can't be specific with any specific drugs. But if it's acting as a stimulant, I mean, there's, yeah, there's a good chance it's interacting with these systems, our physiology.

• 49:16Jonathan Fields?

  It just all somehow speaks to it.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  All comes together, yeah.

• 49:19Jonathan Fields?

  One of the things you also list under the category of clock scramblers is pollutants, like air pollutants. I thought this was fascinating to, talk to me more about this.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  I thought it was fascinating too. My journalism career has been mostly focused on environmental health and a lot of pollution, toxic chemical exposures. And so I've learned about how those things affect our physiology profoundly and, you know, a lot of these consequences. And then delving into the circadian research literature, there's some evidence that a lot of those, the pathway of how that pollutant causes that health effect. Could be through the circadian system. I mean, not unlikely to be the one answer. But yeah, but these like air pollution. There's, you know, increasing number of studies now showing how that is potentially scrambling clocks. And again, this makes sense when we think about how much those clocks control.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  If they do their systems out of whack, now that sets things up to go wrong. So yeah, between BPA, you know, plasticizers, air pollution, heavy metals. Yeah, it's a pretty, it's a laundry list of pollutants in our everyday environment that now evidence suggests it could be breaking our clocks as well.

• 50:32Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, it's sort of like, where do you go and what do you do?

• 50:35Speaker 00

  I know.

• 50:36Jonathan Fields?

  It's interesting. I'm in Boulder, Colorado. We've been here for four years and the year that we got here was a year where there were really bad wildfires not too far from us. And I remember coming outside in the middle of the day and it was evening outside. The sky was just, the sun was completely blocked out with smoke. And when you think about it, okay, so like wildfires, which are becoming increasingly prevalent all over the country and the world, and then drifting all over. I would imagine that there are pollutants in the air, which is going to affect your lungs and your eyes and things like that. But I'm wondering if one of like the effects of that also is it blocks out a certain amount of light.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I discussed this in the book. It actually disproportionately blocks out blue light, believe it or not. So yeah, it's kind of has a double whammy there, right? You're getting the pollutants that could be affecting all kinds of things, including your circadian system. Plus your, your third photoreceptors are not getting as much of that, of that important information about the, the time of day from the light.

• 51:35Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And the other pollution, which is light pollution, we kind of talked a little bit about like, you know, blue light and its importance and some, you know, when we're emitting blue light in the internal environments, but external environments too.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Yes, I mean, our light pollution just continues to grow globally and it's affecting, I mean, it's not only us, of course, it's wildlife and plants and insects linking a lot of declines in these populations to to light pollution. And we are not immune either. And there are certain populations more prone to the effects of light pollution than others. And again, it becomes an equity issue because a lot of those same people who during the day are not getting a lot of daylight are also getting a disproportionate amount of light at night, you know, whether that's they're on a basement apartment or first floor apartment getting more street light or in a housing complex with police erected floodlights, which I witnessed a few of those in social housing complexes. So yeah, we don't have to worry about the indoor light environment, which we might have a bit more

• 52:31Speaker 00

  control over, but the light pollution and that light trespass into our windows if we, you know, don't have adequate blackout lines, for example, or if we're out in that environment, it's blocking our view of the stars, but it's also having some potentially profound impacts on our our ability to have that contrast during the day too for circadian clocks.

• 52:51Jonathan Fields?

  Right. We spend a lot of time talking about basically how almost from the moment that you open your eyes to the moment you close your eyes, there are things all around you that basically break the rhythms and potentially cause harm. Let's turn the page and talk about what we can actually do about this because this is not a like, oh, just suck it up. And you're like, the modern society is destroying your circadian rhythms and there's nothing you can do about like, there are things.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 53:14Jonathan Fields?

  We can be proactive on a micro scale and macro scale to really make a difference here. So take me into some of the the strategies and the tools that we want to think about here to reconnect with our circadian rhythms.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I get excited about this because there is so much potential we can do. This is a subtle thing going on that a lot of us are not really aware of. So but once we know it, we can implement some simple tools. So on the first level, like you said, the micro, the individual level, we can all do our best to increase that contrast during the day. And we can try to get outside for those, yeah, 15, 20 minutes in the morning, even if it's cold out, or use a mimicking, you know, a light that mimics sunlight as best we can. And then getting light during the day as much as possible. Close to a window as much as possible, cutting the lights that night. And then we can also constrict the hours in which we eat because we know that that is another important cue for our clocks.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  In particular, you know, the two, three hours before bed, not taking in any calories. And we know that that can really help our clocks and just help our health overall, our metabolism. And then we can be consistent, and this is a tough one, but if we can go to bed and get up at the same hours every day of the week, all seven days of the week. There's a lot of research showing that that is so much better for us. It's better for our circadian clocks and now there's real recent research linking that to chronic health conditions down the line as we get older. Like being consistent is perhaps more important than how much we sleep in some ways. So those are things, I mean, that last one, again, that kind of depends on society's schedules for us, right? And again, school start times.

• 54:52Jonathan Fields?

  Or your own family. I mean, if you've got like, you know, a three month old baby at home, you're just kind of busted for him. Like there's, there's going to be a couple of months where like all this goes out the window. It's just not going to work. You can try, but you know, reality is reality for just some like windows or seasons of life.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  Exactly. And then in those times, maybe we try to do the other things, you know, as best you can. Just, yeah, all these things are in balance and you gotta consider the practical reality of our world. And that, you know, that goes into, again, stepping back, what can we do macro as a society to help support everyone's rhythms? And that gets us into things like delaying school start times, which is becoming a trend. There are more and more school districts around the country and globally that are considering this. Delaying in Seattle where I'm at, the Seattle Public Schools delayed school start times to about eight forty five from previously being seven thirty for middle high schools. So that's, and studies show that that's really helped the students. They're getting more sleep. They're doing better academically.

• 55:51Speaker 00

  Similarly, work start times, you know, getting a little more flexibility in the hours that employees are required to be on the job. We can think about daylight saving time. Science suggests we should be on standard time. Year round for our clocks because we want morning light and daylight saving time steals an hour of morning light, puts it at the end of the day, which is when we want it dark. So this is hard for me to grasp at first because I am a fan of having light later. But if we think about it, it's the winter that we really need to be worried about. And those mornings can be really dark for a really long time if we were on permanent daylight saving time, which is what a lot of people are pushing for. And we can think about our time zones and some of the time zones that have been drawn

• 56:35Speaker 00

  around the world, our maps, like are biologically illogical. They don't align with the sun. We can be thinking about that, like China is essentially all one time zone and it's, should be five, if you look at the map and how we draw the lines. So things like that, there's, I mean, some of these are harder to achieve, you know, politically, whatnot. Some of these might be easier, at least at a local level and moving, moving beyond that. But I think if we can really respect and understand the potential implications here and how much maybe healthcare costs we could save, productivity in future for our students, those things we could really map out why some of this stuff might be, might be beneficial for society as a whole.

• 57:18Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And I mean, again, that, that works on a micro and a macro level, right? And you know, if just on individual level, if you're like, I'd love to think more clearly. I'd love to get more of the good stuff done. I'd love to be more creative. I'd love to, you know, just show up and maybe that just helps me feel better and like, like, but maybe it also helps me in my career path. Maybe it helps me, you know, in these different, maybe it helps me show up as a better friend, a better son, a better parent, a better, like whoever it may be, because I can just be more there, that there are these little things that we can do and that this master clock really does make a difference, like the circadian rhythm makes a difference. And it makes sense time to try and like figure out like, what are the hot zones, the power zones and like the down zones in my own.

• 57:59Jonathan Fields?

  And you just shared some really simple things that we can do on an individual level. Again, maybe not like for a given moment in your life, but you know, like there, there are almost always probably things that you can cherry pick and say, okay, so yes to this, even things like, and you didn't mention this, but I'm curious, like having. Blackout shades, you know, so so that when like you're in that sleep chamber, you know, you really are, it is pitch black. It is, you know, as dark as it can be. So you're trying to keep that light pollution out. When it's time or keeping phones or devices out of the bedroom, like these are all like the basic sleep hygiene things that we've all heard a million times, right?

• 58:35Speaker 00

  We've heard these. Yeah.

• 58:36Jonathan Fields?

  And then you take that on an individual level, right? And if you multiply that by millions of people, imagine the impact on society, on healthcare costs, on culture, on creativity. It's kind of stunning.

• 58:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. Profound implications potentially. Yeah. We have a crisis of, you know, healthcare in this country, for example, and these costs. And I think this is one thing among many that has been overlooked. That I think if we can really try to quantify a bit more of of the actual impacts, then be be that message we'll we'll get through. I just want to throw one thing out there. This just came to mind because we're talking about blackout curtains again at night. If you think about like, if you get up and go to the bathroom, bathroom light, like that, just that exposure to an overhead bathroom light could could wreak havoc on your sleep and your circadian rhythm. So other little tools like get a lower hanging, you know, nightlight. Or I used to carry an electric candle into the bathroom. I'm over that. Now I have a nightlight. So it's a little silly.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  But, you know, these little things, maybe you don't think about that could potentially go a long way.

• 59:38Jonathan Fields?

  It's funny. I was recently in the bathroom, like in the middle of the night, and the nightlight was really bright. And I was like, almost trying to shield me myself from the nightlight. I'm like, is there like a lower switch or dimmer switch on the nightlight or something? But get something that's not designed to like make it a blade, but just like give a little bit of light.

• 59:56Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I did. I invested. I mean, it wasn't expensive, but I invested in a dimmable, warm colored little nightlight that I have plugged in my bathroom.

• 1:00:05Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, I love that. And we have in our bedroom now, we we got these bulbs where they're connected to an app. And you can adjust sort of like the wavelength and the intensity of the bulb based on like, first thing in the morning, you can have it bright and a lot of blue. And in the evening, you can have more like an amber and a subtler light. It's amazing how much the technology, I think, is adapting to all of these things and becoming really. Accessible and available to a lot of people. You don't have to be in a laboratory environment to have access to the stuff these is.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's exciting. I mean, it is also kind of the Wild West where some of these products, we don't really know exactly.

• 1:00:37Jonathan Fields?

  It's like what's true and what's not. It's like a lot of claims out there, too. When you think about the future, when we talked a little bit about some of the research that you're that you're seeing being done, like, is there any particular thing in this domain that's sort of like, we're not there yet, but like people are exploring it that really interests or excites you?

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, so many things. Towards the end of the book, I last couple of chapters, I really get into more of this. But I'll pull out one. I mean, the first thing that popped in my head is DARPA right now. So the government agency is working with scientists on a digestible, kind of implantable device that could essentially read some of our rhythms. So it's, you know, hormones fluctuate throughout the day, all these things, taking off that data, kind of read our rhythms and then pump out whether it's drug that we need or whatever, based on that immediate feedback. As more we understand this and as technology evolves as well in parallel, putting these things together

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  to read and write our rhythms and then optimize medications and these other things. I think, I think there's phenomenal levels of potential here. And, you know, like timing chemotherapy and things like that with a technology can become all the more feasible because there's of course some barriers like at the hospital with like, you know, there's only so many chairs at certain times of day for these things. So like, trying to implement the science in the clinical world could be a challenge, but I think the technology is really helping us. Or should, you know, in the near future, help us overcome some of those obstacles and make this a reality.

• 1:02:11Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, so interesting and so exciting. It'd be really cool to revisit this conversation in five years and see sort of like,

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Jonathan Fields?

  what's going to. And then I'm sure when you fold AI into the equation too, there's probably going to be all sorts of just fascinating accelerations in all of this work.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:02:26Jonathan Fields?

  It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this conversation, Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  To live a good life, I would say, I mean, I'm biased thinking about this right now, but try to reclaim your lost connection with nature. I mean, nature gave us this 24-hour day and the light and the dark. So trying to re-infuse those kind of lost cues back into our lives has profound potential to improve your health and your happiness and your productivity.

• 1:03:00Jonathan Fields?

  Thank you.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:03:04Jonathan Fields?

  Hey, before you leave, if you loved this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Charlie Gilkey about syncing up with natural rhythms to get more of the right things done. You'll find a link to Charlie's episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Dell for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did, since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven-second favor, and share it? Maybe on social or by text

• 1:03:49Jonathan Fields?

  or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better, so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered, because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

• 1:04:41Jonathan Fields?

  Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet Wealth Partners. Making more money doesn't come with instructions. Nobody hands you a manual that says, "Congrats on the raise. Here's what that does to your taxes." That's where NerdWallet Wealth Partners comes in. They're a financial advisory firm built for high earners in their 30s and 40s. The first thing they do with every client is create a financial plan. It's basically a roadmap from where you are today to where you want to be. When you decide you want to retire five years earlier or spring for the bigger house, they'll run all the numbers on what's possible. And they meet with their clients regularly because they know that at this phase of life, things change quickly. Think of NerdWallet Wealth Partners as the manual for high earners that you never got, plus someone who's actually read it.

• 1:05:23Jonathan Fields?

  Find out more at nerdwalletwealthpartners.com/good. NerdWallet Wealth Partners LLC is an SEC-registered investment advisor. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training, nor does it constitute an endorsement by any securities regulator. Please see nerdwalletwealthpartners.com for disclosures and important information.

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