Daily Routine - What’s your choice? As per the natural rhythm or against it? The way you handle your life, your health, your potential is solely your choice. Your own responsibility demands you to make a well-informed choice.

 “He is waking up very late in the morning, hurriedly gets ready for the office, and goes very fast on his bike ….” -  My friend Keerthi complained about her son while speaking with me yesterday. I could sense she was worrying about her son’s health and safety when she shared that. This is not only with him, this is the sleep pattern of many people now, particularly after COVID. The impact of COVID has not yet settled.

I would like to give you a gentle caution on the after-effects of the disruptions we are making in our sleep-wake patterns. 

Before COVID toppled down our life to 180 degrees, we woke up at a fixed time, we ate at regular intervals, and had enough physical activities(Exceptions were there!). But, during the COVID lockdown period, everything was turned upside down. With no specific objective for the day, we were lacking the motivation to stick to a disciplined lifestyle. During that time, for many of us, the normal sleep time has been shifted beyond midnight. For some, it is as late as early morning. As a consequence, we woke up very late in the morning, sometimes directly for lunch. Am I reminding you of something about yourself?  You might have thought that that was a small change in our routine and once we come back to our normal life after the Covid period, this would be regularized, and we would return to our daily routine.  Did that happen?

Not only COVID, the reason for our changes in the sleep-wake cycle, people who are working for the projects in other countries being here in India, a few who are working for achieving their goal(whose dreams are not letting them sleep!) and some have just like that caught in this trap. 

I can say that we have underestimated the impact of this habit on both physical and mental health. Physically, we feel drained because of two reasons: 

Number one, we work against the biological cycle. Our body normally rests during darkness and it needs sunlight for our routine physical activities. We disrupt this cycle very badly. 

Second, food. As we are awake until late into the night, our dinner time is going very late and many days we skip our breakfast. The acidity level in our stomach will vary unnaturally, which will be the root cause for all the physical problems later.

This habit of going to sleep late at night and getting up very late in the morning definitely will have a significant negative impact on our mental health. Mentally we feel drained because of this. All through the day we are so dull, low and depressed. We get a feeling of guilt after waking up for being asleep till that time. You might have observed one hour of sleep deprivation during the night could not be compensated with one hour of sleep during the daytime. You need more sleep to compensate for that, don’t you?

We all know there is a daily routine which is in harmony with nature which is called circadian rhythm.

That is a natural process in our body which manages the sleep wake cycle. According to that circadian rhythm, the wake up time is 04:30 a.m. to 06:00 a.m., our breakfast time  should be around 08:00 in the morning and lunch time from 12:00 to 01:00. The absorption and assimilation takes place from 02:00 p.m. to 06:00 p.m. Our dinner time should be 7: 30 to 08:00 p.m.

Our sleep time should be no later than 10: 30 p.m.. We are expected to be in deep sleep from 11.30 p.m. onwards because from 12:00 in the midnight, our liver gets activated and regeneration and repair takes place. The detoxification through our kidneys, etc., i.e., waste removal takes place from 02.00 a.m. to 04.00 a.m. And so our ideal wake up time is around 04:30 a.m. one and a half hours before the Sun rises!  

The one thing all religions and all sciences come together is, at this point, the natural routine for human beings. We are not that nocturnal creatures to sleep during the daytime and awake during the night!  

         

We have to stick to this biological cycle for higher productivity and good health.

I am not saying anything new, all these are already told by our grandma! We have many examples: All the important rituals are done from 04.30 to 06.00 am, the Brahma muhurtham. Our ancestors have said we should not eat after sunset!  Early to bed and … !

Are you a person with lots of dreams.? Do you want to do ‘n’ number of things, that too immediately? Are you literally extending your day to complete all the tasks you have planned for that day?

Hold on, be realistic in your targets and planning. You can’t extend your day till late at night to finish all the work you had committed to. You cannot go on doing all the things you have scheduled for that day. 

Yes, your determination is right, you are committed to doing all those things you planned to do today along with your daily routine like a workout for one hour, meditation for 2 hours,  talking to your friends and relatives etc.…

But, sleep and food are also very essential. If you are stealing from your sleep time more than a certain limit you can’t do the next day's work efficiently. For the first few days, you will be fine. But later you will face the consequences of deprived sleep.

If something is not going as per your schedule you have to compromise on any of your targets. Say for example, you have a plan to do meditation or workout daily morning and evening each for one hour, and if you are having difficulty in finding that one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening you may think of half an hour or so. But not on food and sleep as they are natural things that should go as per the laws of nature.

You can sit calmly and think about what activities you would like to do and attach the priority to and then plan a schedule for the day, or week …

You might get a question in your mind now: what if I am working for a multinational IT company where I need to work during the night.

For you and even for those chasing their dream, the answer is to ask yourself: whether your health is your priority or not. You have to make the decision.

I am not forcing you. I am not trying to change you. This change cannot be instilled from the outside. It should come from within. The way you handle your life, your health, and your potential is solely your choice. Your own responsibility demands you to make a well-informed choice.

For those who are not convinced, I will recommend two books. Number one, ‘Why we sleep’ by Matthew Walker, PhD. Bill Gates himself claims that this book has made him see the downfall of the night riders, up all through the night.

The second book is ‘05:00 a.m. Club’ by Robin Sharma. Read these books, or at least the summary of those books, and watch a few videos on the signs of sleep. Only if you want to change from within, you will change, right? So just think about this, do your research, try to understand, and then decide.

(Reference book: A Foundation Course in Human Values and Professional Ethics, by R R Gaur, R. Asthana, G P Bagaria, edition 3)