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Run your Life according to Circadian Rhythm

**Excerpts from Indian express article

  • Human beings are a product of millions of evolution and our biological functions are highly dependent on the nature. Our body and mind function optimally when we are aligned with the various seasons and cycles of the nature.
  • In this age of information, various social media influencers and companies brainwash and endorse certain type of lifestyle or extreme diet or a particular way of living to be happy and successful. Some of the high achievers pride on their 14 hour work days, skipping on sleep, boosting on their busy schedule sacrificing their health and fitness in order to achieve more in life. Everything has a cause and effect. We need to remember that every decision and choice we make now could have a long term consequence. It is very important to respect our biological clock and our dependence on nature. We call this as ‘Circadian Rhythm’.
  • I hope many of you might have had a bad night sleep or worked late night shift or travelled to a different time zone. Then you might also understand the disturbing effects in the next day, like not having a proper bowel movement or feeing anxious or food cravings etc., This happens because we have worked against our biological clock and it has an negative effect on our body functions. Of course sticking to a healthy diet, exercising regularly, taking nutritional supplements, doing yoga or meditation will help but working against our biological clock for long time would be harmful to our overall wellbeing.
  • Nature and environment we live in matters. Our exposure to natural light, quality of air we breath and water we drink, information we listen to and watch, what we believe in and follow, our social network and relationships – all these matter and has an impact on our wellbeing. When we combine the circadian rhythm with balanced nutrition, adequate exercise, quality sleep, healthy relationships, we can give ourselves the chance to experience the power of our body’s natural healing and recovery capabilities.

How does of our Biological clock (Circadian rhythm) work

  • The hypothalamus of your brain has a master clock that controls all the other clocks in your body, including your circadian rhythm. It is called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN).
  • From simple to complex functions like energy levels, quality of sleep, emotions, regulation of the heartbeat, blood pressure, sugar levels, digestive system activity, immune system, body temperature, weight, and much more — SCN controls everything.
  • It responds to light or day and dark or night. Its main role is to send signals to regulate the functions in our body. When light hits SCN, it signals the parts of the body to activate or deactivate different functions.

Which factors upset your biological clock?

They include an array of improper lifestyle shifts. Here are a few that directly affect your biological clock:

  • Night shifts
  • Jet lag
  • Long and frequent traveling
  • Stimulants such as caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, drugs or social media
  • Hormonal changes during menopause or pregnancy
  • Overexposure to artificial/ blue light after sunset
  • Frequent changes in sleep, meal, and workout routines

Tips to be aligned with our biological clock

  1. Eat healthy and eat in regular intervals.
    • Have a balanced diet. Eat only 3 meals per day with a gap of 3 to 4 hours in between.
    • Eat your last meal of the day close to sunset (7 pm). Do not eat or drink thereafter except plain water.
    • Keep a two or three-hour gap between dinner and bedtime.
    • Do not snack between the meals and just drink water.
    • Do not drink coffee or tea 10 hours before sleep.
    • Keep your maximum calorie intake between breakfast and lunch.
    • Eat at the same time every day.
  2. Regular exercise
    • Stick to an exercise routine. Engage in a regular regime and work out around the same time every day.
    • Identify the time of day that suits you and stick to the same workout times daily.
    • Don’t overstrain or follow an intense workout close to bedtime.
  3. Fix sleep and wake up times
    • Try to sleep at the same time every night, whether it is 9 pm, 10 pm or 11 pm.
    • Try to wake up with the sunrise. Maintain the same time through Monday to Friday at least.
  4. Limit screen time
    • If you cannot avoid LED screen time before bed, then use the built-in technology in mobile phones that blocks the blue light in the screen.
    • Use blue light blockers or glasses if needed.
  5. Have pre-bed time rituals
    • Keep the bed room as dark as possible.
    • Perform deep breathing or meditate for a while.
    • Use any method like prayer, chanting, gratitude, affirmations to relax your mind and body.
    • Listen to meditative and soothing music.
  6. Have a post wake-up rituals
    • Do not check your mobiles first thing in the morning.
    • Do some stretching or deep breathing or meditating after you wake up.
    • Do not drink coffee as soon as you wake up. Drink it after 2 hours after waking up.
    • Move your body. It is great if you could sweat it out in the morning. This fires up your metabolism.
  7. Going to loo at a regular time
    • Try to flush your bowels first thing in the morning.
    • Our body accumulates a lot of toxins in our bowels through out the previous day. Clean your bowels at a regular time daily.
  8. Sunlight exposure
    • Exposing ourselves to nature in the morning increases our serotonin (the feel good hormone), and uplifts our mood. 
    • Sun exposure suppresses melatonin, so you get the energy to seize the day. This will help you reset your circadian rhythm.
  9. Energy dips during day
    • Experiencing an energy slump during the day despite living by the circadian rhythm? Here’s a word of advice. rest.
    • It is completely normal because our biological clocks cannot run all the time. They take a break sometimes, too.

~Praveen Jada

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References:

Quick and Important Tips to Loose Body Fat (Weight loss)

  • Drop your calorie intake by 300 to 500
  • Add one extra day of HIIT cardio
  • Use heavy, compound exercises to boost your testosterone
  • Keep cardio to 2 days per week
  • Stop snacking in between the meals
  • Eat protein rich foods and increase overall protein intake
  • Eat more healthy fats and Omega 3 fatty acids
  • Stay hydrated
  • Lower your carbohydrate intake gradually and increase protein content
  • Take right quality supplements.
  • Consider including black coffee or green tea in between meals
  • Try intermittent fasting
  • Sleep well at night ( 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep)

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Some Amazing Facts That Could Change Your Life

Paradox = a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.

  • The more you try to make people like you, the less they probably will.
  • The more you hate a trait in other people, the more likely it is that you are avoiding that trait in yourself.
  • The more connected we become with the world, the more isolated we seem to feel.
  • You can only have a happy relationship if you are happy being by yourself.
  • The more you force a relationship, the more likely you are to mess up.
  • The more you fail, the more likely you are to succeed.
  • The more something scares you, the more you should consider doing it.
  • The more you learn, the more you realize that you have a lot more to learn.
  • The more a person is convinced they are right, the more likely they are wrong.
  • The more honest you are about your faults; the more people will think you are perfect.
  • The more options you have the less satisfied you will be with each one.
  • The more you can love yourself, the more you will be able to love others.
  • The less afraid you are of death, the less afraid you are to live.
  • The only certainty is uncertainty.
  • The more you struggle early on, the less you suffer later in life.

Taken from this Youtube video

~Praveen Jada

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Choose Your Food Wisely – What you Eat Becomes Part You

Answer these simple questions for yourself

Do you want to build your dream house with weak foundation, low quality cement and bricks or sub-standard wood. Imagine that you would choose to build a house with improper foundation and low quality building materials. Will the house stand? Answer is Yes. Will you be able to live in the house? Answer is Yes. Will you be able to have a peaceful and problem free time in that house? The answer is most probably ‘Not’. Because we all could imagine what problems we might face in a badly built house. The house might periodically get into structural issues like cracks, water seepages, plumbing and electrical issues, furniture repairs etc.

Now let’s make an analogy with our own temple called our body. Our body is a highly complex machine handling some millions for biological reactions and activities in a second. Processed foods with added preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, refined carbohydrates with no nutrient value, sugar and sugary foods, deep fried foods etc. are highly inflammatory and unhealthy. Despite having an unhealthy and irregular diet, we do survive and can continue with our life but with a lot of breaks in between which are filled with pain, distress, disease and misery.

We need the best quality fats—our brain is 60 percent fat, our nerve coverings are all made from fat, every one of your 10 trillion cells is wrapped in a little fatty membrane. Fats are used in the making of hormones and certain enzymes in our bodies. Do you want to eat healthy fats from natural foods and unrefined oils  or do you want to get the unhealthy fat from deep fried foods and processed foods?

We also need the best quality protein. The body makes most of its important molecules from protein including muscle, cells, and immune molecules. Not all protein is the same. The best type of protein to build muscle is other muscle—animal protein. You can get protein from plant foods, but the quality is lower and it has lower levels of key amino acids needed to synthesize new muscle, especially the branched chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine and valine and also lysine and Sulphur based amino acids). There are also compounds such as phytates in plant proteins like beans and nuts that impair protein absorption. Rather than being turned into muscle, plant proteins are often just burned as calories.

If you are vegan, especially as you age, you need to ensure you get these by increasing the overall volume of protein rich plant foods, adding protein powders, and supplementing with BCAA. If you want to eat less meat and include more plant proteins, combining them helps the body utilize the plant protein.

Importantly don’t forget all the vitamins and minerals we need to build tissues, muscles, and bones, including Vitamin B complex, Vitamin C, vitamin D3 + K2, calcium, magnesium, Zinc and more. Next time you chomp down on something, ask yourself if you are fine with it becoming part of you for the long term. If not, don’t eat it and find the best quality ingredients you can, ingredients that help you thrive.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Keto Diet and Low-Carb Diets – Who is it Beneficial for?

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates, a state known as ketosis. When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy. It turns fat into ketones in the liver, which can supply energy for the brain and body.

  • Low-carb diets lead to more short-term weight loss than low-fat diets. However, low-carb diets seem to lose their advantage in the long term as it may not be sustainable for majority of people.
  • A large percentage of the fat lost on low-carb diets tends to be harmful visceral(belly) fat that is known to cause serious metabolic problems.
  • Low-carb diets are very effective at lowering blood triglycerides, increasing HDL cholesterol, reducing in blood pressure, possibly even reversing type 2 diabetes.
  • Low-carb and keto diets have proven beneficial in treating epilepsy in children and are being studied for their therapeutic effects on other brain conditions in general population.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Our Daily Routines Impact Our Brain Health

The decisions we make each and every day, like what we eat, how much sleep we get, and how often we move are all steps that can dramatically shift the health of the brain for the better. And there’s so much more we can do, too.⁣
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A poor diet affects our brains in more ways than one. What we eat influences everything from our mood, ability to focus, and memory to our tiniest gut friends—microbes—and how well they function and fight off invaders. ⁣
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Stop poisoning your brain. Avoid sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats, food additives, and preservatives, all of which poison your brain and disrupt your biochemistry. If it’s not real food, don’t eat it.⁣
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At least 75% of your plate, by volume, should be filled with colorful plant foods. These colorful superfoods come loaded with brain-boosting stuff like phytonutrients. Enjoy an array of colorful plant foods like blueberries and dark leafy greens like kale, Swiss chard, spinach, watercress, and arugula. ⁣
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Also, eat plenty of fat. 60% of your brain is made up of DHA—an omega-3 fat that you get from algae and fatty fish. My brain worked pretty well before but embracing fat (even good saturated fats like MCT oil) pushed my mental clarity through the roof. ⁣
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And make sure to optimize protein. We need about 30 grams of protein per meal to build muscle. When you lose muscle, you age faster and your brain takes a huge hit! Eat protein at every meal, including omega-3 eggs, protein shakes, nut butters, or even fatty fish for breakfast.⁣

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Role of Mitochondria Health on our Overall Wellbeing

  • Mitochondria are key energy sources for our bodies. They are tiny factories housed within our cells that take the foods we eat and the oxygen we breathe and convert them into energy.⁣⁣
  • That energy is called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, and it is used to support every function in our bodies.⁣⁣
  • Each cell holds hundreds or thousands of mitochondria; they are found in greater concentrations in active organs and tissues like the heart, brain, and muscles.⁣⁣
  • In fact, we have more than 100,000 trillion mitochondria in our bodies, and each one contains 17,000 little assembly lines for making ATP. Mitochondria are where metabolism happens.⁣⁣
  • So, when your mitochondria aren’t working properly, your metabolism runs less efficiently and can even practically shut down. Problems occur because these powerful energy producers are VERY sensitive and easily damaged. When they are damaged, we suffer from low energy, fatigue, memory loss, pain, rapid aging, and more.⁣⁣

Symptoms of Mitochondria Disfunction:

  • Poor growth.
  • Muscle weakness, muscle pain, low muscle tone, exercise intolerance.
  • Vision and/or hearing problems.
  • Learning disabilities, delays in development, mental retardation.
  • Autism, autism-like features.
  • Heart, liver or kidney diseases.
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, swallowing difficulties, diarrhea or constipation, unexplained vomiting, cramping, reflux.
  • Diabetes.
  • Increased risk of infection.
  • Neurological problems, seizures, migraines, strokes.
  • Movement disorders.
  • Thyroid problems.
  • Respiratory (breathing) problems.
  • Lactic acidosis (a buildup of lactate).
  • Dementia.

Causes of Mitochondria Disfunction:

  • DNA mutations
  • Mitochondrial inheritance
  • Oxidative stress (Oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage have been implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Oxidative stress is characterized by the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, which can induce mitochondrial DNA mutations, damage the mitochondrial respiratory chain, alter membrane permeability, and influence Ca2+ homeostasis and mitochondrial defense systems).
  • Environment and our Lifestyle Habits.

Treatment Options:

  • Supplementation
    • Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)
    • Vitamin B complex especially B1, B2, B3, B9, B12.
    • Vitamin D3.
    • Electrolyte complex.
    • Omega 3 (EPA and DHA)
    • L- Carnitine
    • Creatine
    • L- Citrulline
    • L- Arginine
  • Resistance Training or Weight Lifting
  • Aerobic exercises like walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming and others.
  • Physiotherapy

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

The Power of Magnesium

In our society, magnesium deficiency is a huge problem. By conservative standards of measurement (blood, or serum, magnesium levels), 65 percent of people admitted to the intensive care unit — and about 15 percent of the general population — have magnesium deficiency.⁣
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But this seriously underestimates the problem, because a serum magnesium level is the LEAST sensitive way to detect a drop in your total body magnesium level. So rates of magnesium deficiency could be even higher!⁣
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The reason we are so deficient is simple: Many of us eat a diet that contains practically no magnesium — a highly-processed, refined diet that is based mostly on white flour, meat, and dairy (all of which have no magnesium).⁣

Much of modern life conspires to help us lose what little magnesium we do get in our diet. Magnesium levels are decreased by excess alcohol, salt, coffee, phosphoric acid in colas, profuse sweating, prolonged or intense stress, chronic diarrhea, excessive menstruation, diuretics (water pills), antibiotics and other drugs, and some intestinal parasites.

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  • Stop Draining Your Body of Magnesium⁣
  • Limit coffee, colas, salt, sugar, and alcohol⁣
  • Learn how to practice active relaxation⁣
  • Check with your doctor if your medication is causing magnesium loss (many high blood pressure drugs or diuretics cause loss of magnesium)⁣

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In addition to all of this, make sure you are taking Magnesium supplements. The most absorbable forms are magnesium citrate, glycinate taurate, or aspartate, although magnesium bound to Kreb cycle chelates (malate, succinate, fumarate) are also good.

Ways to Maintain Good Gut Micro Biome (Pro-Biotic)

  • We know that an impaired gut microbiome can be triggered by a number of things. ⁣⁣⁣
  • These include a high-sugar, high-fat, low-fiber diet; impaired immunity; use of drugs, like antibiotics, birth control pills, and estrogen; and psychological stress.⁣⁣⁣
  • Refined grains, and highly processed foods convert to sugar when we eat them and SUGAR is what FEEDS the bad bacteria. Anti-inflammatory medications, acid-blockers and antibiotics have been proven to lower the biodiversity of the gut flora. ⁣⁣⁣
  • In a study published in Clinical microbiology and infection showed that the biodiversity was significantly lower in the participants taking more than one of these medications. ⁣⁣⁣
  • The great news is that the gut microbiome can be healed. ⁣⁣⁣
  • You can start healing your gut by first removing the bad and adding in the good stuff. ⁣⁣⁣
  • Good bacteria love healthy whole, organic, plant-based foods, ones that are high in fiber and nutrients and contain no artificial ingredients. ⁣⁣⁣
  • Focus on fibrous foods such as cruciferous vegetables, berries, garlic, onions, lentils, nuts and seeds, avocado oil, and olive oil. And supplement with probiotics.

~Praveen Jada

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Vaccination efficiency increases with Good Lifestyle Practices

Excited about the vaccine, then make it more effective with your lifestyle. In order to get the most out of it, we should incorporate healthy lifestyle changes (exercise, nutrition, sleep etc…) prior to getting it and after getting the jab. Various studies have confirmed that people with healthy lifestyle make vaccines work more effectively in their bodies.

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer

Strength Train to Recover from Chronic Lower Back Pain

Lifting weights has been shown in several studies to improve Lower back pain (LBP).
Chronic LBP may result from a sedentary lifestyle which is typically accompanied by weight gain, perceived disability, & decreased physical function, NOT because “you’re really injured”. Exercise on the other hand can improve these conditions.
Strengthening of the muscles of the back & core seems to be the main mechanism by which resistance training reduces LBP. These results have also been supported by many studies.
Resistance exercise is not the only modality of exercise which has shown to improve LBP. Yoga, aerobic exercise, & Pilates all have been shown to improve back pain.
The main message is… EXERCISE! The main reason I wanted to cover resistance exercise specifically is because so many people are afraid to do it when they have some pain. Additionally, lifting weight will make you look better in the process!

~Praveen Jada

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