Author lived underground for 10 days to study sleep, happiness, health

In her quest to better understand how factors like when we eat and the amount of sunlight influence our ability to feel rested, happy and balanced, Lynne Peeples went 50 feet underground for 10 days.

Peeples, a science journalist and author of “The Internal Clock: Living in Synchronization with Our Circadian Rhythms“, found one Airbnb in Arkansas which was once a bunker during the Cold War.

“This guy had bought an old nuclear missile silo from the government and re-drilled it,” he said in an episode of “Every day gets better with Leah Smart” podcast.

In the bunker, “there was no daylight,” he said. Peeples also got the Airbnb host’s permission to cover all the clocks on the digital devices with black tape so they would have no idea what time it was down there.

The lights in the bunker were dim and red. “We know that red is the wavelength of light that it affects our circadian rhythms less“, he said.

For his book, Peeples wanted to explain what happens to his internal clocks “if I cut myself off from those cues that need to tell me the time.”

During her stay, Peeples documented her experience via voice recordings with the plan to use time markers to see how well it lined up with her typical schedule — like when she ate breakfast or when she went to sleep. .

“For the first two days, it was miraculous because I could later see the timestamps from the voice recordings I made, and I was quite accurate in living a 24-hour day,” he said. “Our clocks in us keep pretty good time.”

But about halfway through the experience, Peeples started to feel “really out of sorts” which she likened to major jet lag.

“At the ‘worst’, I was completely flipped. I lived my day when everyone else above the ground was sleeping. So, it was close to 12 o’clock off,” he said. “I felt the effects of it.”

Peeples began to experience moodiness, “feeling hot and cold,” and hunger once his internal clock was not well synchronized with his usual schedule. He also noticed that her thinking was more clouded, and she was more clumsy than usual.

“Not that it wasn’t expected, but to really feel that, it was pretty deep.”

When your circadian rhythm is out of sync, you may experience fatigue, insomnia, headaches or even depression, depending Cleveland Clinic. The results of the Peeples experiment also prove what research has shown about how certain factors, such as sun exposure, can affect your circadian rhythm.

“To maintain this calibration, it is approx get adequate bright light, especially in the morningPeeples said.

“In the first hour or two when you wake up, if you can open your eyes to the light of day,” you are in good shape.

Go for a 15-minute walk in the morning, and “be as close to a window as possible throughout the day,” he suggested. at night, Dim the lights in your home as you approach bedtime first your body for the bed.

Aligning your lifestyle with the 24-hour cycle is vital for your body’s functions, including processing food correctly and “priming our immune system” to fight certain pathogens. It’s the best way to “keep all those body systems doing a better job of doing the right things at the right times.” she he said.

Peeples also provided a list of things that can disrupt your circadian rhythm, and affect more than just the quality and quantity of sleep:

• Darkness during the day
• Too much light at night
• Eating at the wrong time of day (snacking every time)
• Changing the time on our clocks twice a year, when we “laugh” and “spring ahead“
• Travel across time zones

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