The Pillars of Wellness Series: Circadian Rhythm, Water, and Lifting Heavy Things

As a reminder if you are new to this series, the Three Pillars of Wellness are:

🌿Sleep

🌿Nutrition

🌿Exercise

This blog post explains circadian rhythm and why we need to respect this rhythm, how much water you need to consume (& why filtration matters), and the importance of lifting weights during perimenopause.

WHAT DOES CIRCADIAN RHYTHM REALLY MEAN?

We use this term all the time, but how many of us truly know what it means?

The circadian rhythm is our body's natural 24-hour cycle, and it is closely aligned with daylight and darkness. This rhythm plays an important role in determining our sleep and wake patterns. Yes, it tells us when we are sleepy or awake, but it goes further than that. Our circadian rhythm oversees many processes in our bodies that are crucial for our health. Proper synchronization of this rhythm is crucial for our overall health, and if it’s out of balance this can lead to various health issues, including sleep disturbances.

Our bodies naturally aim to align our sleep-wake schedules with environmental cues, such as the rise and set of the sun or our mealtimes. However, when there's a mismatch between our internal body clock and these external factors, it can lead to sleep difficulties. This misalignment can result in poor sleep quality, trouble falling asleep, and even daytime fatigue. Sound familiar?

These disruptions can be temporary from things like:

• jet lag

• staying out too late with friends

• exposure to artificial light that isn’t aligned with natural daylight hours (e.g. blue light exposure after dark)

• meal timing (e.g. late night eating)

• shift work

 Short-term impacts of circadian rhythm disruption on hormone health may include

• increased reactivity to stress

• emotional symptoms like anxiety

• poor glucose regulation

• trouble concentrating

• trouble remembering things

• sleep disruption

In the long-term, disruptions in circadian rhythm can lead to insulin resistance and increased risk of metabolic dysfunction, as well as changes in hunger-satiety signaling. This can all lead to overeating and increased risk of metabolic syndrome (precursor to diabetes). Long-term changes in circadian rhythm can also affect your menstrual cycle and can lead to irregular and longer menstrual cycles. Not really what we need as we get scrappy trying to manage all the other symptoms of perimenopause!

So, what can you do to support your circadian rhythm?

🌿 Make sure your nutrition is dialed in! A diet with lots of fibre and devoid of inflammatory foods can go a long way to support your body’s internal clock.

🌿 Support your sleep with foods that contain tryptophan (e.g. chicken, turkey, fish, and nuts). These all help to produce melatonin.

🌿 Limiting caffeine and alcohol is also beneficial – these can keep us awake or even wake us up in the middle of the night.

Supplements that can be helpful include melatonin itself, valerian root and magnesium.  If you are trying melatonin, consider one with B6 in it to enhance absorption.

Here is also where lifestyle is important:

🌿 Having a regular yoga practice has been shown to reduce insomnia and improve sleep quality, so consider a short calming yoga practice in the evenings. I highly recommend a yoga Nidra or restorative yoga practice.

🌿 Mindfulness practices and meditation in general are also great ways to improve sleep quality and reduce insomnia.

🌿 Going to bed and waking at the same time each day is one of the key components to optimizing your circadian rhythm.

🌿 Getting early morning light to re-set your melatonin for better sleep at night is also crucial.

Ensuring a balanced circadian rhythm is crucial for maintaining optimal hormone levels as you transition through perimenopause, as circadian rhythms significantly influence the production of cortisol, melatonin, insulin, estrogen, and other hormones. While supplementing may seem like a quick fix for hormone imbalances, and they certainly have their place, I recommend incorporating fundamental lifestyle adjustments to promote a healthy circadian rhythm. This holistic/whole body approach will provide further-reaching impact to your energy levels, quality of sleep, and enhanced hormone balance in the long term.

NOW LET’S TALK WATER

Ensure you are consuming 2-3 litres of filtered water on a daily basis. If you sweat, exercise, do heavy work, drink excessive amounts of caffeine or are ill…you should increase that amount. Sure, you can calculate the exact amount you need, or you can just fill a 1L water bottle once in the morning, afternoon and evening. Let’s just keep the water game simple, shall we?

Guess what? Coffee is not water. Neither is black tea, pop, vitamin water and bottled juice. These drinks will pull hydration and minerals from your body, making you even more dehydrated.

A word about filtration….

Tap water, pipes and faucets are known to contain lead, pesticides, pathogens, chlorine treatment by-products, arsenic, fertilizer, radioactive contaminants, and pharmaceuticals. These contaminants can lead to health issues including cancer, thyroid conditions, bone disease and compromised liver and kidney.

Brita-style filters are useful to eliminate chlorine in tap water, however they do not eliminate bacteria, fungus, viruses, microplastics or pharmaceuticals. For this reason, I recommend Berkey or Santevia filtration (no affiliation). You can also install fancier water filtration systems in your home, but remember that if you choose reverse osmosis, you need to RE-mineralize your water. That’s super important.

If you find it hard to get water in because you don’t love the taste, I’d recommend adding some berries, lemon, basil, mint, cucumbers, or anything appealing to you. Make it fancy: use some sparkling water, add a splash of cranberry and voilà, you have a nice mocktail.

EXERCISING TO SUPPORT PERIMENOPAUSE

Today we are talking about the optimal types of exercise for women in perimenopause. During this transition in our bodies, the way we exercise might need to be reconsidered. If you were a person who did a lot of cardio in your 20s and 30s, It might be time to scale that back. Same goes for HIIT workouts. Now, I am not saying there is no place for these types of workouts (there is!). Rather, I am saying that the priority in these years needs to be lifting weights over cardio. Heavy weights. Your body needs it right now for lots of reasons:

• Builds muscle

• Maintains your muscle

• Supports healthy bones

• Supports metabolic health by ramping up your metabolism

• Helps prevent age-related sarcopenia

Am I suggesting you stop doing cardio and HIITT? No, not at all. What I am saying is that you should stop doing excess cardio and constant HIIT workouts. If you’re moving through perimenopause, you might already be in a constant battle with fatigue and you’re most likely dealing with cortisol dysregulation and other declining hormones. Consider that this combination might not be the ideal scenario to do lots of cardio and HIIT and it can actually contribute to weight gain or weight plateau. Lifting heavy weights should definitely be the priority and there is loads of research to support that.

You might be asking “where do I even start?”

Start where you are. If you are new to lifting weights, hire someone if you can but at all costs, get yourself squared away with a foundational-based training plan with a focus on form. Don’t jump headfirst into lifting heavy weights.

You need to be able to move the body you are in before you start adding additional weight.

For example, maybe start with 3 times a week with a focus on big muscle groups and complex, compound movements (this is where you work one big muscle at a time but engage other muscle groups along the way). Maybe you pick one exercise for back, shoulders, chest, arms, legs and core and just repeat this workout for a few weeks and then change it up, increasing the load as you can. At the start, maybe you are doing body weight squats and lunges, for example. Once you get a solid foundation, then start to think about splitting up muscle groups, adding weight, and increasing the number of workouts per week.

Don’t let time be an excuse. If you can’t get a whole workout in, ask yourself what parts you can fit in. Or perhaps you break the workout into 3, 10-minute sessions throughout the day. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just need to commit to doing the workout.   

The sooner you begin to implement these tips (and the others I’ve shared in this series) and the sooner these become habits, then the better your body, moods, energy and sleep will feel!