Circadian-Aligned Eating
Functional Profile of
Circadian-Aligned Eating
Circadian-Aligned Eating is the practice of consuming meals in harmony with the body’s internal clock, emphasizing food intake during daylight hours and reducing intake after sunset. Rooted in chronobiology and traditional wisdom alike, this approach honors the body's natural peaks and dips in metabolic activity, digestive enzyme output, and insulin sensitivity. It supports terrain regulation by enhancing hormonal rhythm, digestive tone, and energy clarity across multiple systems.
To understand why meal timing across the day and night may be important, it is helpful to understand circadian rhythms. All organisms on the planet have evolved internal timing systems based on the two distinct environmental contrasts that occur as a result of Earth’s 24-hour daily rotation: night and day, dark and light. Organisms have evolved timing in different processes, such as when to sleep and when to wake. These biological rhythms regulate factors like digestion, blood pressure, body temperature, and wakefulness.
These internal biological rhythms are the reason we experience jetlag when traveling quickly across time zones and why it takes days to adjust. In humans, the light period is also the waking phase, active phase, and phase of food foraging and consumption. The dark period is the sleeping phase, inactive phase, and fasting phase. In nocturnal species, like rodents or owls, these internal biological rhythms respond to different inputs from the environment to synchronise with the time of day.
Meal timing is an important input for the body, allowing it to anticipate the need to digest, absorb, and utilize energy and nutrients.
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