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We are made of time

, but not only because we measure our lives in years or our days in hours and minutes.

: the daily or circadian rhythm, such as sleep and wakefulness, the infradian rhythm, such as menstruation in women, or the ultradian rhythm, such as the one that marks the rhythm of feeding and sleeping in a newborn.

To mark that rhythm we have three clocks

: one internal, housed in our brain to direct all organic cycles, and two external ones that are governed by nature (the sun) or by society (the established time).

They should all go to the beat but there are different elements, such as the change of time, that play against their correct synchronization.

Before getting into disruptors it is perhaps best to explore

.

There is a discipline dedicated precisely to studying biological rhythms, chronobiology, which has been gaining weight as we have come to understand the importance of 'when' and also as a result of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology, awarded to the discoverers of the molecular clock.

María de los Ángeles Rol de Lama, co-director of the Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Murcia, explains how

: "The biological clock, which is in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, is like an old clock of rope, and it has its own rhythm that is a little longer than 24 hours, so it needs to be readjusted every day".

.

"They are described as

," explains Dr. Celia García Malo, spokesperson for the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) and co-director of the Comprehensive Sleep and Neuroscience Center (CISNe).

The next synchronizer is

, "when we exercise, sleep hormones are blocked and cortisol is activated", explains García Malo, "which is what tells us that we have to be awake, it is a stimulant".

, both also distributed in our 24-hour routine.

But without a doubt, light is the most powerful synchronizer.

, although not all light sources have the same ability to inform the biological clock to achieve this effect.

"If at the end of the day we expose ourselves to very intense or very rich blue lights or for a long time", warns Rol de Lama, "we are sending a conflicting signal to our biological clock, and that somehow causes it to become unbalanced and the rhythms that it controls, practically all the physiological variables, are also misaligned".

Some experts have come to compare the effect of exposure to artificial light at night with that of some drugs or dietary interventions, precisely because of their effect on the body.

In other words,

.

"During sleep there is a lot of activity of the entire endocrine system, such as the hormones of satiety and appetite or the growth hormone", explains the SEN spokesperson, "there are many factors that are necessarily regulated by sleep and if it is not produced normally, it will lead to imbalances in other organs".

And the consequences are not minor: obesity, cardiovascular risk, mood disorders, hormonal imbalances, infertility, etc.

There are other ways to alter the rhythm of the clock, and one is featured twice a year:

.

It is considered a 'chronodisruptor' but its effect admits nuances.

First of all, not all people are affected by change in the same way.

We all have a

and we carry it written in our genes (in our molecular clock).

The extreme chronotypes are defined as owls and larks, based on their preference for going to bed later or getting up early, respectively.

But the majority of the population is in intermediate points between both profiles.

What is certain is that our own rhythm will also make the time change more or less bearable,

.

The same thing happens with another well-known chronodisruptor:

.

.

"The clock has a natural tendency to slow down", clarifies the chronobiologist, "when you make a flight to the west, in many cases it means delaying the schedule (going to sleep later) and that can be done without difficulty".

Otherwise it is moving the time forward, something that will probably happen if we fly east.

And there things change, no matter how hard we try, we will not be able to sleep much before the usual time.

Can we then compare

jet lag

with the time change?

Not quite.

.

Again the light-dark cycle allows us to set our clock.

But in the case of the time change, the modification is carried out in a way that is alien to the reality that surrounds us.

It is a social convention, but our body will continue to perceive the same signals as the day before, which leads to confusion.

"It is said that the sunset and sunrise change with chicken steps", explains Rol de Lama, "and with the change of time it is as if you went back three weeks in time".

.

But that theory doesn't seem to work in the case of the time change.

How long does it take for the body to get used to a schedule?

There is another similar chronodisruptor,

social

.

This occurs when the center of sleep on work days and the center of sleep on days off differ by more than two hours.

The center depends on the time of going to bed and getting up.

This is what happens when, even sleeping a similar number of hours,

(for example, if we get up at 6 o'clock from Monday to Friday and on the weekend we don't open our eyes until 11 o'clock).

But

.

But lost sleep is not recovered.

"What you manage to sleep on the weekend is never going to be comparable to the sleep you have lost every accumulated night," says Dr. García Malo, "And also, binge sleeping is bad because you are not being regular with the schedules" .

And the brain is rhythmic, if we alter its

we will only confuse it.

We can use a nap to catch up on sleep

According to the neurologist, it can be a positive practice... as long as it

.

"It coincides with a biological moment in which there is usually a feeling of natural drowsiness and it is good because later in the afternoon people are more active, they concentrate better, they perform better..." But if it lasts longer than it should, it can cause problems of dream

Similarly, it is not recommended at all for those who suffer from insomnia.

With regard to routines, the nap would not interrupt our rhythm as social

does , but in any case it does not replace night sleep, much more effective for our "set-up".

And of course, following the routine to the letter if it implies always falling short of sleep will not be a solution either.

In the end, we will only be able to be sleepy during the day, which will make us perform worse and will also negatively affect our health.

All this is usually the consequence of an intense pace of life, often imposed by a society that is active 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

.

Everything influences: that we force the clock... and that same clock does not obey an environmental reality.

Spain is known for its peculiar hours: we work when our European neighbors retire for dinner and we have dinner when the rest of the world is already asleep.

There are cultural and historical explanations behind these customs that are so out of

with the rest of the world, but the truth is that

.

The time change affects this problem even more

, because the change from standard time to daylight savings time takes us even further from the time zone that we would correspond to based on sunlight.

For some years now there has been talk of abolishing this time change, precisely because it has been found that energy savings are minimal and because what we do know is that the effect on our health is real.

When will the time change stop?

Experts advocate maintaining standard time throughout the year

.

It is also called 'winter time', but experts try to avoid this name because of its negative connotation compared to 'summer time'.

The standard is the most logical, although it has not been able to prevail for different reasons.

Nor does it seem possible to get Spain, and Europe in general, to adjust their schedules more closely to the solar reality of each country, since that would mean a

.

Time zones aside, regularity, keeping up, seems to be the key point.

That is why one of the biggest known chronodisruptors is neither

nor time change, it is

.

And that rhythm should not only apply to sleep and the light-dark cycle, let us remember that there are other synchronizers that also play an important role, such as

.

"There is a part of chronobiology that is advancing a lot, which is chrononutrition", explains Rol de Lama, "this science is advancing in understanding that not only what we eat matters, but also when we eat it".

A few years ago, a study was published that showed that consuming the same caloric intake after 3:00 p.m. was more difficult to lose weight compared to those who did it before that time.

Again the rhythm, the times of sleep and wakefulness, fasting and feeding... And they are rhythms that also coincide with each other.

"We are a diurnal species and the day should be day and the night, night, in every sense", continues the chronobiologist, "it means that the day has activity, it has noise and it is the moment in which we eat, and when it comes At night our body is physiologically prepared for fasting".

As we saw before, satiating hormones are secreted, which prevent us from being hungry even if we wake up in the middle of the night.

We cannot go against the change of time

(which for the moment seems to remain as it is),

, even if it is delaying our habits 30 minutes on Sunday so that we do not have to fully immerse ourselves into a new routine when the alarm goes off on Monday.

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