Ok well let me start this off by telling you that lambs don’t directly affect your circadian rhythm.

And what IS a circadian rhythm, anyway?

Circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles that are part of the body’s internal clock, running in the background to carry out essential functions and processes. (More below about this from www.Circadian.life)

Having read a bit about it and pondered on such an obvious part of our day-to-day well-being that our modern world is SO fundamentally out of sync with (pun intended), I decided to look at some simple ways to bring more elements into my daily life. And why IS our modern world so out of alignment with these building blocks to well-being? Why do we sit for hours in front of screens, whether for work or ‘leisure’? Why do we find it so hard to break that habit, even though we don’t feel particularly good spending hours staring at blue light sitting on our bums? Or we go to bed too late and feel rubbish the next morning. Or drink too much coffee and can’t relax?

Our societies and cultures really make feeling well an oft up-hill battle.

Circadian.life is an app that I (ironically) put into my blue lit screen in order to help me learn more about my circadian rhythms and find a new flow. Some of it easy, other elements, not quite so.

Now, if you are here and reading this article, you are very likely to already understand, whether intuitively or factually, or both, that being outdoors is good for us. Our cells NEED natural light and suffer greatly when there is a lack of it. In our grey and rainy Great Britain, we don’t see much of our old friend the Sun, but his nourishing rays penetrate through cloud and send our cells valuable information nonetheless. The sun’s rays cannot reach us through glass in the same way.
If you are sending your child to Wildlings, you will undoubtedly see how much happier your child is after a day of being outdoors and moving his or her body in natural ways, sometimes barefoot, regardless of the weather. These elements of movement outdoors are all essential parts of our circadian rhythm. And in nature, so much the better, for the negative ions in natural spaces (unlike positive ions in built-up areas).

When your child does not have plastic soled shoes on, their feet connect to the earth and they are grouding. What is grounding, you ask? “Grounding or earthing refers to direct skin contact with the surface of the Earth, such as with bare feet or hands, or with various grounding systems”, so said by THIS fascinating study on the subject.
The same goes for getting their little hands dirty in the mud kitchen, feeling the rough bark of a tree or whittling a stick to then use to play a game with friends, or toast stick bread by an open fire. These seemingly small actions have such resoundingly amazing effects on our bodies, minds and spirits. We must do much of it!

So back to my circadian app… I input a little data about my age, sex, weight and location in the world. It then calculates how much sleep I need based upon my location and the time of year (more sleep in winter, less in summer), when to eat, and when to start my evening fast, whenm to sleep and when to wake. It offers so many other bits and pieces, but the bit that I find intriguing and useful, is when to go to sleep and when to wake up in the morning, as I feel so divorced from this intuitive knowing in my body, thanks to our weird modern world of time.
We have the clocks jumping forward an hour for Spring this weekend, and no matter how many times this happens in my life, my body suffers and I feel a jolt that takes a while to recover from. What does this do to our children, as well?
These days, my alarm clock is now adjusted to the circadian app, and we will see what effect that has to my family’s daily schedule in a few day’s time! Will it throw everything off? Will we be running late for everything as a result? I’ll keep you posted!

Other little things I have built into my day:

1. wake up and GO OUTSIDE (I find this sooooo hard, and just want to lie in bed and check my emails)

2. exercise in the sunshine in the morning (or just in the morning light, if no sun)

3. go outside regularly throughout the day (even when it is a day of working on a screen)

4. when the sun goes down, NO MORE BLUE LIGHT (more on this below)

5. eat earlier and fast longer overnight

Point 4 has been difficult to bring about and is not an instant solution like point 1 to simply get up and go outside. I have slowly implemented point 4 in the family, and my goodness has is made a MASSIVE difference. Things we have done:

• purchased orange (sunset) bulbs for indoors, so we cook and eat by these and into the evening

• purchased red automatic night lights around the house and especially in the bathroom

• purchased red book lights for reading in the evenings

• red lens glasses for essential screen work after dark

• minimal screen use after dark

• started reading paper books again, instead of scrolling on blue light phones

• put red light filters on phones and laptops

And there you are - a little financial investment has gone a long way and something I really recommend. Results so far? We all naturally go to bed earlier. We all naturally do chilled things in the evenings, like play cards and talk to each other more. We sleep better. We rise naturally earlier.
I have found that is has completely transformed the family energy and thus makes sleep quality better and earlier mornings naturally easier.

I purchased night lights like THESE, bulbs for lamps like THESE, red lens glasses like THESE. (And a heap more items, but I think these are the two essential bulbs for family well-being, and red light glasses if you have to be at the computer and don’t have a screen filter after dark.)
You can google how to put a red light filter on your smartphone and/or tablet/laptop. It’s easy to switch it off for daytime use too.

I will leave you with reflections of our circadian well-being from www.Circadian.life because my little app has just reminded me that it is time to take a break and step outside for some natural blue light during the day and a bit of movement!

Do leave your comments below; I would love to hear how you might already do some of these things or maybe even more. It is a vast subject and the implications for our wellness are huge.

Oh, and lambs? They know, don’t they. Their little bleats can be a reminder to get outside, run about on the grass with bare feet. And most importantly to remind you that you too, are a mammal and thrive when you get to do mammalian things like rise with the sun and sleep with the dark.

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“Life has evolved around the natural light-and-dark cycles. Plants and animals have developed internal biological clocks to stay in sync with these cycles. These clocks allow organisms to anticipate and prepare for regular environmental changes as well as regulate and coordinate internal metabolic processes.

Your body’s circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles of biological, hormonal, and behavioural patterns. These rhythms modulate a wide array of physiological processes, including the body’s production of hormones that regulate sleep, hunger, and metabolism. Ultimately, these rhythms regulate your body weight, performance, mood, and susceptibility to disease. At least 50% of human gene expression is under circadian control. As such, circadian rhythmicity has profound implications for human wellbeing and longevity.”