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Sign UpWhen you eat influences more than just digestion—it impacts your circadian rhythm and energy levels. Logan Pendergrast, Ph.D., outlines smart meal timing strategies for night shift workers to feel more stable and rest more effectively.
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it's important to remember that our
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circadian clock controls these key
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functions such as our hormone release
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and our metabolism and that we can
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modulate specific external factors so
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that we can optimize our general rhythms
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Now it's known in the scientific data
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that people who work shift work are more
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prone to issues such as circadian
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disruption and also risk of
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cardiovascular disease and diabetes And
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there are fundamental reasons for this
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One of those fundamental reasons is that
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individuals who work shift work often
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eat at irregular times They're not
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typically eating the standard breakfast
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that non-shift workers eat when they
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immediately wake up And they're just
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eating less often with other people And
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so one way to counteract this would be
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to eat meals at a specific time every
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day always And so an example of this
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would be perhaps we work a shift from uh
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11:00 p.m until 7 a.m and we let's say
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wake up at something like 5:00 p.m So if
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we wake up at 5:00 p.m and we eat a meal
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at 6:00 p.m and then eat another meal 3
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to four hours later and then another
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meal 3 to four hours later We should be
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doing that consistently every day even
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on days where we're not working so that
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our body can anticipate this in terms of
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their rhythm and we can prepare
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digestive enzymes and all the other
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bodily processes that are associated
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with digesting our food Additionally
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it's important as well to go to sleep at
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the same time every day And the reason
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for this is so that our body can
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anticipate the release of specific sleep
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hormones such as melatonin to prepare us
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for sleep in a coordinated way
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repetitively over time And if we can
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implement these tips of consistency in
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both our eating and our sleeping time
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regimen then this can help us coordinate
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and really overcome any sort of
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challenges that are involved with
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working shift
