THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO YOUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHM

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO YOUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHM

Your journey to find out all you need to know about your circadian rhythm starts here. Use this guide to help you find out about what you want to find out next about your circadian rhythm. Or to help you where you want to start to get the best holistic overview.

Depending on your preferences, you can choose with which resources you’d like to start. I’m only here to invite you to explore the fascinating world of your circadian rhythm. And to guide you the way in this process so that you can ultimately become more energized, healthier, and more productive.

The Best Articles to Find Out Everything
About Your Circadian Rhythm

What Is Your Circadian Rhythm, How Does It Work, And
How Does It Influence Your Daily Life

This is the place where you’ll want to start getting to know your circadian rhythm. Get a general overview to understand all the basics about your circadian rhythm. This will be a useful foundation of knowledge to dive deeper later on.

How to Use Your Circadian Rhythm to Improve Your Daily Life

Do you specifically care about the impact that your circadian rhythm has on your daily life? Then you’ve come to the right place. I’ll show you about the connection to virtually everything from your mood, to eating and exercise timings, to your immune system.

On the one hand, we’ll have a look at how those fluctuate during the day because of your circadian rhythm. And on the other hand, we’ll have a look at how you can use that to your advantage – now that you know about it.

How to Get Your Circadian Rhythm Back on Track
At Home and When You Travel

Now, you are right here if you want to strengthen and align your circadian rhythm – either because of your daily life or because you travel across time-zones. And in these practical guides, you’ll see all the scientifically proven steps that you can take to achieve just that. And don’t worry if you are then curious to see how long it’ll take – I’ve got you covered there too.

All the Additional Topics Covered In the Posts

There are many more topics that help you understanding your circadian rhythm and how to best use it to benefit your daily life and beyond. Or simply to understand your body a little bit better. And here you can find all the complementary posts covering these topics.

My Favorite Books
About Your Circadian Rhythm

There are quite a few books that I’ve read about the circadian rhythm. And I found the following three to cover this topic by far the best – each from their respective perspective. For the best understanding, I would recommend you to read them in order.

Internal Time
by Till Roenneberg

Till Roenneberg is one of the leading chronobiologists of our time. He helped us understand the importance of our daily light exposure, the influence of our chronotypes, and the phenomenon of social jet lag.

In this book, he takes you on a journey to explore your circadian rhythm. Every starts chapter with a beautifully written story about one aspect of your circadian rhythm, before you’ll then explore the scientific explanations behind.

The Circadian Code
by Satchin Panda

Satchin Panda is another leading expert on circadian rhythms. He discovered the connection between blue-light and your circadian rhythm and pioneered time-restricted eating.

In this book, he takes from the basics of the circadian clock, to your lifestyle, to the implications for your health. You’ll also find detailed guides on how to practically implement those changes “from morning to midnight.”

When
by Daniel H. Pink

Daniel H. Pink is a multiple New York Times bestselling author. And one, who connects research on your circadian rhythm to other parts of your daily life.

This book is divided into three parts. And the first one explores many different facets that the circadian rhythm has on your day – in what he calls “the hidden pattern of everyday life.” While the other two parts invite you to think about timing from a completely different perspective.

My Favorite Course and Academic Papers
About Your Circadian Rhythm

If you are more into learning directly from the researchers, then I can strongly recommend you to have a look at the MOOC about your circadian rhythm that was developed by Martha Merrow and Till Roenneberg from Ludwigs-Maximilian Universität München in cooperation with Coursera.  While offered at an undergraduate level, a basic understanding of biology will be helpful.

Circadian Clocks

How Rhythms Structure Life

What I loved about this course is that it is presented by two of the leading researchers, Martha Merrow and Till Roenneberg in an engaging and structured way. You’ll learn about your circadian rhythm starting from the very basics, our natural environments, explore why virtually every organism has one, and then end up with the implications for us humans.

It is especially that holistic approach, coupled with (even some unpublished) insights from the largest study on chronotypes, the Munich ChronoType Questionnaire (with over 300k participants to date), that they’ve co-jointly led.

You’ll not only get a solid understanding of your circadian rhythm but also get to know two of the leading chronobiologists of our time.

I’ve literally read hundreds of scientific papers on the topic of the circadian rhythm. And if you want to explore some of them first-hand, then there are a few that I’d recommend you to start with. 

These papers are especially useful as a stepping stone to start further exploring this topic. And if you are interested in scientific papers more geared towards one topic or another, you can always check out the reference section at the end of every post.

To get the most out of these, I’d recommend you to start with the first two papers and then let your further interest guide you.

Circadian Clocks: The Fall and Rise of Physiology
Till Roenneberg & Martha Merrow (2005)
Nature Publishing Group

Entrainment of the Human Circadian Clock
Till Roenneberg & Martha Merrow (2007)
Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology

The Suprachiasmatic Nucleus: A 25-Year Retroperspective
David R. Weaver (1998)
Journal of Biological Rhythms

The “Other” Circadian System: Food as a Zeitgeber
Friedrich K. Stephan (2002)
Journal of Biological Rhythms

Zeitgeber-effects of exercise on human circadian rhythms: what are alternative approaches to investigating the existence of a phase-response curve to exercise?
Benjamin J. Edwards et al. (2008)
Biological Rhythm Research

The Circadian Clock and Human Health
Till Roenneberg & Martha Merrow (2016)
Current Biology

Fasting, Circadian Rhythms, and Time-Restricted Feeding in Healthy Lifespan
Valter D. Longo & Satchin Panda (2016)
Cell Metabolism

Last, but definitely not least, did I mention that the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that paved the way for our contemporary understanding of the circadian rhythm?

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 was awarded jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young “for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.”

Jeffrey C. Hall

Michael Rosbash

Michael W. Young

Image credit: Press Release Nobel Media AB

You can view the original press release
from the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet here.