Previous study has shown that the body clock plays a very important role in our daily health.
The body clock, or when we feel sleepy and hungry in the 24 hours every day, may determine our risk for many chronic diseases.
For example, a disrupted body clock is associated with higher risk of breast cancer growth, obesity, and other problems like jetlag.
Body clock problems are also related to Alzheimer’s disease before any memory loss appears.
People with Alzheimer’s disease can experience bad night sleep because they wake up several times instead of sleeping a whole night.
In the day time, the sleep more or become more inactive compared to healthy people.
A disrupted body clock also leads to high blood pressure even the person is on a low-salt diet.
Besides the harmful effects on physical health, a broken body clock can also hurt one’s mental health.
One recent study from University of Glasgow finds that body clock disruption is associated with mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder.
The study is published in The Lancet Psychiatry.
The team examined the data of more than 90,000 people in the UK Biobank cohort to get an objective measure of the people’s body clock.
They found that people with a disrupted body clock had higher risk of several mental health issues including depression and bipolar disorder compared to people with a normal body clock.
In addition, these people reported less happiness and less health satisfaction. They felt more loneliness, and they showed reduce cognitive functions.
The researchers suggest that body clock disruption can happen when people do more activity in their rest periods or do less activity in their waking periods.
Shifts in activity levels and sleep problems are common symptoms of depression and bipolar disorders.
The researchers said: ““This is an important study demonstrating a robust association between disrupted circadian rhythmicity and mood disorders.”
“This is important globally because more and more people are living in urban environments that are known to increase risk of circadian disruption and, by extension, adverse mental health outcomes.”
“The next step will be to identify the mechanisms by which genetic and environmental causes of circadian disruption interact to increase an individual’s risk of depression and bipolar disorder.”
So how to make sure your body clock works well?
Experts suggest you sleep for 7-8 hours every night, and don’t skip breakfast. Night shift work can disrupt the body clock and cause health problems, so you should try to reduce it.
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