After late nights for a deadline you simply had to push past, or after crossing multiple time zones for leisure or work, you find yourself staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Itβs safe to say youβve disrupted your circadian rhythm, and you must now find a way to reset it. How do you do a circadian rhythm reset?
As a manufacturer of sleep patches designed specifically to support people who want better sleep quality, we have spent considerable time studying how and why circadian rhythms get disrupted and how to reset and restore them. We list our recommendations on how to reset the body clock after a series of late nights and jet lag.
Key Takeaways
-
A circadian rhythm reset is necessary when your internal body clock falls out of sync due to travel or late-night schedules.
-
You can realign your body clock through consistent habits like morning sun exposure, a regular sleep-wake schedule, and intentional meal timing.
-
Support your circadian rhythm recovery by creating a calm sleep environment, avoiding screens and stimulants before bed, and applying sleep support patches from Restore Patch.
What Is a Circadian Rhythm?
Your circadian rhythm pertains to your body's internal 24-hour biological clock. Every cell in your body has its own clock, all coordinated by a master clock in the brain.
This body clock runs on a 24-hour cycle, and it determines when you are awake and when you are asleep. It also regulates more than just sleep, as it governs many functions in your body, including the following:
-
hormone release
-
body temperature
-
digestion
-
immune function
-
hunger
-
cognitive alertness
Your internal body clock takes its cues from the outside environment. When your eyes detect light, the master clock signals "daytime," and your body suppresses melatonin production so you donβt get sleepy. Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone produced by the pineal gland, and it helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
Melatonin is a large part of the reason you remain awake in the day and become sleepy at night. As the day progresses and the amount of light decreases, the amount of melatonin in your bloodstream increases, helping your body get ready for sleep at night.
Aside from light levels, other external cues that matter to your circadian rhythm are meal timing, exercise, social activity, and your work schedule.
Why Does the Circadian Rhythm Matter?
A well-aligned circadian rhythm means your body's systems are working at the right times. Your digestion is active during mealtimes, your brain is sharp during working hours, your immune and repair processes run during sleep time, and you feel naturally sleepy at night.
When your circadian rhythm is disrupted, everything shifts out of sync.
The consequences go well beyond feeling tired. The circadian rhythm influences cognition, and a disrupted rhythm throws off hunger signals, digestion, and hormonal cycles. This is why shift workers and frequent travelers often experience weight changes, mood issues, and gastrointestinal problems alongside poor sleep.
How Is the Circadian Rhythm Disrupted?
Late nights and travels that make you cross several time zones throw the circadian system out of sync.
Working through the night (and doing this often) pushes your sleeping time later and later until a sleep schedule reset happens. Consequently, your eyes tell you itβs dark, but you donβt feel sleepy. Likewise, it may be daytime, but you feel groggy and not fully awake.
Traveling to another country on the other side of the world forces you to cross multiple time zones faster than your body can adjust. As a result, while your body clock runs on your home countryβs time zone, your new environment is giving you contrasting information. Your body feels like itβs time to sleep, but itβs still light outside.
Cross enough time zones in a few days, and you'll feel the full force of a misaligned rhythm: insomnia at night, exhaustion during the day, difficulty concentrating, and even stomach upset.
Circadian Rhythm Reset: How to Reset Your Body Clock
How can you help your circadian rhythm recover after late nights or extensive traveling? You must force alignment between your internal body clock and the environment by changing your sleeping and waking times.
Accomplish this by following the time change sleep tips below. These are essentially ways to enforce a regular sleep-wake cycle, and theyβre what you need to do every day to reset your circadian rhythm after it has been disrupted.
1. Get some sun upon waking.
Start your day with sun exposure. Get bright natural sunlight within an hour of waking, ideally outdoors, for at least 30 minutes. This is the best way to tell your body itβs day and reinforce your wake-sleep cycle.Β
2. Dim the lights a few hours before bedtime.
In the evening, dim all indoor lights one to two hours before bedtime and avoid screens (phones, TVs, tablets) at least 30 minutes before sleep. Remember how light suppresses melatonin and disrupts your rhythm? Blue light from screens is one of the worst culprits.
3. Lock in a consistent sleep-wake schedule.
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Consistency trains the rhythm. Irregular schedules are one of the top causes of circadian disruption.
Build a consistent pre-sleep routine: journaling, meditation, a warm bath, or reading that signals to your nervous system that the day is over.
4. Use Restore Patch sleep patches.
Apply a sleep patch from Restore Patch 30 to 60 minutes before your target bedtime.
Make it part of your nightly pre-sleep, wind-down ritual. As you set aside your mobile phone and turn off your television, after a warm bath and before you open your nightly reading and start making yourself comfortable on the bed, apply a sleep patch onto the inner skin of your upper wrist.
Restore Patch sleep support patches are biofrequency patches. They are made up only of a thin sheet of copper foil and a medical-grade 3M adhesive. They donβt contain any drugs, chemicals, extracts, sedatives, or synthetic hormones, so they donβt lead to dependency and donβt cause withdrawal symptoms, adverse reactions, or side effects.
How do they work? Through physics, particularly biofrequency technology.
In the copper foil is embedded a unique frequency. When a sleep patch is applied to the skin, this energy is transferred to the body. Through the process of interference, the patchβs embedded frequency reduces or eliminates overly excited energetic states that make falling asleep difficult.
5. Shift your schedule gradually.
It takes time to recover after late nights. If your current schedule is off by several hours, move bedtime and wake time in 30-minute increments per week until you reach your target. To bring your bedtime two hours forward, youβll need to consistently work on moving this for four weeks or a month.
6. Time your meals.
Eat earlier in the day to sleep earlier, and eat later to sleep later. Keep meal times consistent to reinforce your circadian rhythm. Moreover, do not eat a large meal within two hours of bedtime, as digestive discomfort disrupts sleep quality.
7. Exercise daily.
Regular physical activity helps with melatonin production and syncs your body's systems with your circadian rhythm. You can exercise in the morning or in the afternoon.
How about in the evening? Conventional wisdom says you should not exercise too close to bedtime. However, a study cited by Harvard Health Publishing indicates you can exercise in the evening, as long as you avoid vigorous and intense activities at least one hour before bedtime.
Evening exercise, the study says, does not prevent people from getting a good sleep. In fact, it can help people fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. However, high-intensity exercises, such as high-intensity interval training, one hour before bedtime, can lead to poor sleep quality.
8. Cut off caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.
Limit your caffeine intake, especially closer to bedtime. As a general rule, stop consuming coffee, tea, or other caffeinated beverages by early afternoon. Nicotine, too, is a stimulant, so avoid it several hours before bed.
How about alcohol? Itβs true that alcohol can help you fall asleep, but it fragments sleep quality and disrupts your rhythm, nonetheless, so avoid it.
9. Optimize your sleep environment.
Keep your room cool (i.e., 60-65Β°F/15.6-18.3Β°C), fully dark, and quiet. These environmental conditions are signals that say "night" and tell your brain itβs bedtime. They can make it easier to both fall and stay asleep.
10. Cap naps and time them right.
When youβre trying to reset your body clock, avoid naps. For instance, after crossing multiple time zones, itβs still morning where you are when your body expects it to be afternoon. Letβs say your body is accustomed to sleeping at 10 p.m. By 5 p.m., youβll be exhausted and will want to get all tucked in to sleep.
Do not give in to this urge. You want a circadian rhythm reset, remember?
If the fatigue is overwhelming, you may take a nap in the early afternoon, say at 1:30 or 2 p.m., but limit it to a maximum of 30 minutes. That should give you some energy to resist the urge to fall asleep during the day.
We also suggest using Restore Patch energy patches. You can apply an energy patch in the daytime to help fight off the urge to sleep, but make sure to remove it at night and replace it with a sleep patch.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a circadian rhythm reset?
A circadian rhythm reset is the process of realigning your internal 24-hour body clock with your current environment. It's needed when late nights or travel across time zones push your sleep-wake cycle out of sync. Recovery involves consistently shifting your bedtime and wake time, using light exposure, applying Restore Patch sleep patches, meal timing, and other behavioral cues.
How long does it take to reset your body clock?
The time it takes to reset your body clock will depend on how far your schedule has drifted. If your bedtime is off by two hours, youβll need four weeks or a month to work on resetting your circadian rhythm. This entails moving your sleep time in 30-minute increments per week.
Does daylight saving time affect sleep?
Yes, daylight saving time (DST) disrupts sleep. The one-hour clock adjustment breaks the synchronization between your internal body clock and the outside environment. During DST, you need to wake up and sleep one hour earlier than your body has been accustomed to doing.
What helps after a late night or a time-zone change?
Morning sunlight during wake time, a consistent sleep schedule, dim lights during bedtime, and the absence of blue light from screens can all help after a late night or a time-zone change. Applying Restore Patch sleep patches at bedtime can also help realign your rhythm.
When should I speak to a doctor about ongoing sleep issues?
See a doctor if sleep trouble occurs three or more nights per week and has persisted for at least three months, or if poor sleep is meaningfully affecting your daily activities. You can keep a sleep diary for one to two weeks before your appointment to help your provider identify patterns and underlying causes.
Reset Your Body Clock
Your internal biological clock, your circadian rhythm, is what tells your body when to do what: when to digest food, when to release hormones, when to let you focus, and when to wind down for a good nightβs sleep.
Unfortunately, a series of late nights partying or working, as well as traveling across multiple time zones, is enough to disrupt your well-ordered circadian rhythm and cause sleep problems.
Fortunately, you can recover after late nights and bounce back from jet lag. Practice the tips above to reset your circadian rhythm, and make sure to support your efforts with Restore Patch sleep patches.
Get a health patch subscription now.
Β
