Kristiana Corona
Hello and welcome to the Worthy to Lead podcast. I am your host, Kristiana Corona, and I'm so glad you decided to join us today because I am joined by a good friend of mine, Lynne Peeples who is an author and seasoned science journalist. And she recently published a book that I am obsessed with. I cannot put it down that dives deep into this topic of understanding and maximizing our performance based on our circadian rhythms and really understanding how we get those in sync. So welcome to the show, Lynne.
Lynne Peeples
Thanks for having me on.
Kristiana Corona
So before we dive in, I do just want to give people a brief intro to who you are, because I know most people are not running around in the science circles within my listener group. And so I just want to make sure they understand kind of your context. So you're an author and a journalist who has covered science and health and the environment for many years. Your writing has appeared in The Guardian, Scientific American,
Nature, HuffPost and NBC News, which is amazing. The Atlantic, probably a lot of other publications by now. I know the number keeps climbing over time. And you've also appeared on MSNBC, HuffPost Live, BBC News, ABC Radio Australia, and the Nature podcast. And before becoming a journalist, Lynne crunched numbers as a biostatistician for an HIV clinical trial and environmental health studies.
She was also a recipient of the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and an Alfred P Sloan Foundation book grant. She also holds master's degrees in biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health and in science journalism from New York University. So very impressive bio friend. And she lives in Seattle. And as a fun fact, of course, we went to college together at St. Olaf College. Um Ya Ya!
Lynne Peeples
Yes! Um Ya Ya!
Kristiana Corona
So to kick off our episode today, I know a lot of my listeners are, you know, having a tough time and really struggling with a lot of the challenges that we have going on in this world. A lot of stress, a lot of chaos, a lot of burnout. I know a lot of organizations are going through change. And it's hard, you know, to not let that negativity seep down into your teams and into yourself. And so this series of stress reduction podcasts is really meant to help bring in different experts from different fields so that they can have new perspectives and figure out, you know, what are the tools that they can use to go from being in survival mode to really thriving and being resilient through all of this change. So I'm excited to have you here, Lynne, to join us to talk more about circadian rhythms and how getting our internal clocks aligned can really have a powerful impact on productivity and health.
So I know that we're going to cover social jet lag, which is a super interesting thing I had never heard of before, and how we combat that, how to prioritize your peak energy hours, getting effective light exposure, especially when we're in office settings now, how to wind down your body for optimum sleep, and other amazing ideas for circadian rhythm support. So.
Kristiana Corona
This is a fascinating topic. I know we have a lot to cover, so let's dive in. All right. So thank you for coming on and sharing your amazing research and insights. And to kick us off, I just want to start with the basics, because like I mentioned, I think most of my listeners are probably not part of the science circles. So can you explain what circadian rhythms are and how they work?
Lynne Peeples
Absolutely. Yes, very good place to start. So most people think of sleep when they hear circadian rhythms, which is not inaccurate. It's certainly a big part of this, but circadian rhythms do so much more for our bodies. So we are actually filled with like trillions of tiny clocks. Nearly every cell of our bodies has one of these
biological clocks. And we evolved with these clocks ticking in coordination with each other, as well as with the sun, so the 24 hour Earth Day, to prime our bodies to do the right things at the right times. So that's, you know, our body, our metabolism system is primed, and our digestive systems are primed to work at their best when they're expecting food to come in, for example.
And our immune system is wired to be most protective of our physiology at certain times of day to fend off pathogens at certain times. And we're primed to sleep at certain times of day. So all those things, we can't do them all at once. We can't do all these things 24 seven. So our bodies have kind of created this efficient system where things are like optimized to work best at certain times. And because we live on this planet with a 24 hour day,
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
Our clocks are not precision timepieces, so they're not ticking at exactly 24 hours a day. And there's reasons for that biological that scientists are hypothesizing. But the takeaway for us is that because they're not ticking precisely at 24 hours a day, that "circa" in circadian means around or about. That means we need regular calibration from the environment to keep them ticking in tune with our Earth's light-dark cycle.
And the primary cue for that is light. So it's the sun. So we need regular exposure to that to try to keep them reigned in and ticking the line with the sun.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
I think that that is so fascinating. Just the topic of we have trillions of clocks in our body. Like the way this has been talked about over time, it just like really simple, oversimplified maybe where we're like, we have a clock, we have an internal clock and that clock does this or that and controls things. But what I think is so cool in your book is you dive deep into all the different kinds of clocks and how each of them needs to be calibrated to stay in sync.
Lynne Peeples
Right. And it's, yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, the picture is getting more complicated as happens in science, but the ultimate takeaway again for us is, you know, relatively simple. I mean, it's those similar cues, you know, trying to tie all these clocks together and in coordination. We have, we do have a master clock in the brain, which you might hear about. So there's kind of one clock somewhat leading the charge. So it's sending signals throughout the body.
But we're also learning that like eating at different times a day can directly affect our liver clock, for example. So that's what's kind of pointing a lot of the science to practical applications. As we understand this, we understand how eating and light exposure and all these things can affect our clocks.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. So before we get too far, I do want to share with readers. This is the book we're talking about. It's called The Inner Clock: Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms. And it's so, so good. I honestly couldn't put it down. And I think you mentioned that you worked for like nearly three years gathering research for this, right? So just a little bit of time.
Lynne Peeples
Just about. Yeah. I mean, it was, yeah, just a little bit of time down a few, yeah, deep rabbit holes. It's, mean, it's fascinating. I'm still fascinated by the topic. So yeah, lots to learn.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. So what inspired this? What fascinated you about this topic?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, you know, I think it really goes back to growing up in Seattle. I mean, I wasn't conscious of this at the time, but we are really exposed to a lot of kind of the negative factors that affect our rhythms here, particularly. We're at a high latitude, which means the wintertime days get really short. I mean, it's not as bad as Alaska, but we're pretty north. And, you know, you hear about the Seattle gloom.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Lynne Peeples
which is real, it gets dark. So I remember growing up just feeling kind of that seasonal affective disorder at play. And then, like a lot of us, I grew up in middle school, high school, particularly high school, we started like 7.25 a.m. or something crazy early. like there's, it's just not right. So several weeks of the year, you're going to school in the dark, you know? And then if you have activities after school, got, you know, if I played basketball, I wasn't leaving the gym till.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, that is just not right.
Ugh... Yeah...
Lynne Peeples
it was dark again. So you really didn't get daylight. you know, I didn't feel great. I didn't think that, you know, circadian rhythms had anything to do with it. But, but I was, I was dragging. And then I went to college in Minnesota, St. Olaf. And the winter days there, you know, as you know, are bitterly cold, but they're also often really bright.
Kristiana Corona
Right.
Lynne Peeples
You get that clear sky, get that snow on the ground reflecting the light. And, you know, maybe it was just because it was such a wonderful place, but I remember being so much happier and like alert. Yes, I do. Seriously. Yeah. Let's play. Let's go. Let's go trade down old main hill. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
You remember the cold fondly, the snow, you're just like, thank goodness, all this light around me, this is great. While the rest of us are like huddled up and like, get inside. Let's go throw snowballs. I know you did, I know you did.
Lynne Peeples
But it wasn't until it was like nine years eight or nine years ago now I had moved back to Seattle as a freelance journalist and I got an invite to go to Safeco field Which is what are the Seattle Mariners baseball field was called at the time to check out some new lights they'd installed. So they put in new stadium lights these LED lights very cool And they took us into the locker room to show us some other lights they had installed And they had they'd put in these
lights that you could adjust the color of as well as the intensity of and they talked about how they were using them to help the players energized before the games. And then after the games like turn the turn the lights to like a warmer color and dimmer to calm them down to help them sleep. And you know, talking about how this would help their circadian rhythms. And that's when it was like, I started connecting the dots and just got fascinated and I could
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm
Lynne Peeples
Now they're trying to do this for these Seattle players. Could circadian rhythms explain like my struggles throughout my life and could this be something I could use? does this point to tools that could make me feel better, maybe other people? So that's.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. So that scientific curiosity was, was absolutely activated by going in that locker room and you're like, Hmm, okay. What's next? So then you went on this crazy adventure. I'm just going to call it crazy. Cause you talked to over 240 different experts across a variety of professions and geographies. You spent time in a cold war war era nuclear bunker without light for 10 days.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, exactly.
Lynne Peeples
you
Kristiana Corona
You went to Alaska and you experienced what it was like to have 24 hours of sunlight. You visited Europe and investigated the history of light and its impact on architecture and design. You slept in sunflower fields to observe biological clocks of sunflowers. I mean, this whole book is just full of these amazing little adventures and all the discoveries that came along with that and how all of that
Lynne Peeples
you
Kristiana Corona
impacted your thinking around circadian rhythms. And so I just want to know like what was your favorite experience throughout that entire adventure?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, that's a close call. mean, was, the sunflower field was fun. I mean, it was a little creepy wandering around in a sunflower maze at three in the morning with my red light bouncing around. it felt like I was in a horror film. But really, was, I mean, it was probably the bunker.
Kristiana Corona
With your flashlight. Like, who is there?
Lynne Peeples
I mean, that was, that was quite the experience. So yeah, I did, I spent 10 nights underground, 50 feet underground. I had changed all the lights in there to this really dim red light, which is that's the, the color known to not affect our circadian rhythms so much. And, you know, taped over every clock there possibly could be. And I decked myself out with all these devices to measure my different rhythms. So whether that's, you know, heart rate.
my temperature, my glucose levels. you know, I was tracking my sleep. So all those things I had, like just was accumulating mounds of data and also recording how I felt. And for me, what was really the most profound, probably data point or experience was, you know, noting how I felt during those 10 days, it was like halfway through. I just started feeling pretty crappy. Like, you know that.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
that extreme jet lag that you might get traveling halfway across the world, for example. I was starting to feel that, you know, just that like, I don't know, like hollow head feeling your stomach's like messed up, just feeling off at different times of day, you know, struggling to sleep, but like wanting to nap. was just my body lost its rhythm. And then, but I didn't see any data until weeks later, I had some scientists going through my data with me. And we found that about that time,
My different clocks in my body had fallen out of sync. You know, they were coordinated at the start and then all of sudden they were just drifting and drifting at different rates. So they were no longer coordinated. And even more probably important than that is they were dampened. So you could see, you know, originally you could see like this up and down this rhythm of the day for these for heart rate, temperature, whatever it might be. And then those, they just got flattened. And this is what scientists are coordinating or are correlating.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
with a lot of health issues. So it's both this like, this dis-coordination as well as this dampening of rhythm. And that, you know, has taken away our body's efficiency, ability to do those right things at the right times. And I felt that, you know, and I could see with that data, just it was fascinating to make that connection. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
to experience that with your own body. I remember you posting a video of yourself trying to juggle. You didn't even know what time of day it was. You didn't have a clock. You were just loopy and you were trying to juggle and it was totally uncoordinated and you're like, this is gonna be crazy, but this is how exactly how my body's feeling right now. So if that happened for you after 10 days of not getting enough light, like...
Lynne Peeples
No, no!
you
Lynne Peeples
You
you
Kristiana Corona
I guess from a health perspective, like what happens to us if our circadian rhythms are dampened or out of sync for too long?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, a lot of things, unfortunately but also fortunately, because as we understand this, that's pointing us to some solutions, right? But yeah, I mean, as I mentioned at the beginning, all our body systems have clocks and for good reason, because they're helping our body anticipate things and again, be efficient and do those right things at the right times. So when we lose that,
when those things are triggered at the wrong time or they're just hardly triggered at all, that's pumping different hormones through our body. Including probably what people hear about, melatonin, right? The rise of melatonin is what sets off a cascade of things that helps us sleep. And then insulin levels, for example, which are crucial to keeping our blood sugar levels steady. All these things just count on that anticipated rhythm. And when we don't have that, yeah, just a host of inefficiencies happening. So scientists are tying that to increased risk of obesity, diabetes, as well as cardiovascular disease, cancer. There's likely this bidirectional relationship with
cognitive decline later in life. So Alzheimer's dementia, they're finding that it's probably both circadian disruption is increasing the speed of which that develops, as well as the condition itself is affecting circadian rhythms and making it difficult for people to live kind of a 24 hour day. They're sleeping at all hours, for example. So just more and more of these links are being found and in a
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
And the scientists are like, makes sense because of the mechanisms by which our bodies rely on to get those things done. So metabolism is probably the biggest because that's, we really do count on these hormones to come at certain times to process our food and keep our insulin levels consistent and those kinds of things. So yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, that's, that's serious stuff. And, you know, I think about all of the other advice that we get around, trying to be healthy and get enough sleep and do all of these different things. But if the underlying foundation of circadian rhythms are off, we're not going to be able to fully get the benefit of all of those things that we're working so hard to do to preserve our health. Right.
Lynne Peeples
Exactly. Yep.
Kristiana Corona
So, I mean, we're always looking to optimize our performance or, you know, be in optimum health, especially as leaders. And, you know, we want to have focus. want to have great, attention and mental clarity in order to make good decisions. and in your book, you talk about how each of us sort of have different power hours, if you will, based on our chronotype and chronotypes are basically like the category of, you know,
early larks, night owls, or doves, which is, guess, the middle category, I've never heard of before, where most of us sort of fall in between. But we all kind of have these power hours. So I'm curious if you could talk a little bit more about that and then how do we best optimize those peak hours so we can be most efficient at work?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
yeah, I find this like such a powerful tool and so much potential here. So yeah, I tried to figure out my own throughout the process of writing the book. So it really starts with figuring out your own chronotype and when your power hours might be. And that really takes, I mean, it kind of takes time. It takes being away from obligations for a few days. Like if you can take a vacation, not set an alarm clock.
let your body do its thing. Try to let your body fall into a natural rhythm of going to sleep, waking up, and then taking note of when during the day do I feel most alert? When do I feel like I have a pep in my step? Like, you know, a little more physical energy. All these things tend to peak at different times of day. And once you kind of get a sense of that, you know, look at your daily schedule.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
Do you have wiggle room so you can align those peak hours with appropriate tasks? So for me, I discovered that, you know, kind of the late morning hours were when I was most productive. You know, was most alert, most focused and could bang out, you know, a couple of pages of a book, for example, during those hours. Whereas mid afternoon, for a lot of us, I'm a dove. So for a lot of us, mid afternoon, we tend to slump.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Lynne Peeples
And it's not just because we ate a big lunch, that's part of it, but it's also your circadian rhythm. It's just, it's lowering your alertness at that time of day. So now I account, I allot those hours for, you know, brain intensive activities. So maybe that's doing the dishes or something. So, yeah, so there's different times of day for these things. So kind of getting account of that. And then, you know, don't, depending on your work environment, if you're going into an office or you're working from home,
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples (20:42.784)
just trying to like protect those hours of peak productivity, for example, maybe turn off your phone, or if you're in an office, you know, put up a sign. I met a woman in Denmark who is helping companies try to support their workers circadian rhythms and power hours. And she's using, she's kind of handed out these frogs, these colorful like plush frogs that people can put in their like office window or on their door that...
Kristiana Corona
Mmm, yeah.
Lynne Peeples
She says, basically says, "frog off". like, when you, when you see that you don't bother that person, right? You let them do their, do their thing for a couple hours. Right. So, so yeah. yeah, just trying to, trying to take advantage, optimize those hours.
Kristiana Corona
So it doesn't sound, it doesn't sound like it's that hard to figure out your chronotype. Like I thought you had to use like apps or fancy tracking data, but it sounds like what you're telling me is just take a vacation and don't set an alarm clock and let your body do its thing. And you'll know, you'll naturally know when your body wants to wake up, when it wants to go to sleep, when it wants to do something energetic, when it wants to relax and that that will just all sort of emerge.
Lynne Peeples
You
Lynne Peeples (21:58.314)
You know, I think so. are questionnaires out there. There's a Munich chronotype questionnaire, if you want to Google that, that can run through. will give you kind of a guesstimate of your chronotype as well. But even with that, people can vary as to when during the day they peek in these different things. There's a lot of individual variability. So the best thing to do is just, yeah, pay attention. Try to gauge your yeah, your own powers.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. What I love about that is I feel like it sort of combats this public shaming of people who might be night owls or who might tend towards being more productive at night or more efficient at night and not early in the morning. You know, like we're all sort of told, you need to be an early morning person. That's when you're most productive. That's how you get ahead. That's how you make more money. Like all of those things, right? About, this is the one way to be.
And I think what I love about your book is you sort of talk about actually we're all on different schedules. And in order for you to be at your maximum, it's not about force yourself to be something you're not. It's about understanding how your body wants to operate and trying to get in sync with that as much as possible.
Lynne Peeples
Yes.
Lynne Peeples
Yes, absolutely. I think, I mean, I probably a lot of your listeners will agree with this. It's, know, there's only so much in your own power to some degree about like how you allocate your hours. So I think the more leaders hear this, you know, bosses out there, you it's a win-win. If you can help your employees, you know, live best and work best according to their natural rhythms, you're going to get more out of them and they're going to be sick, potentially sick less. So there's been studies in Europe that have found
increases in productivity, fewer sick days used when you let people work by chronotype. So maybe that's coming in a little later to the office and then staying later, know, kind of just shifting, shifting schedules based on their personal chronotype. And then, you know, there's work arounds, like if you have to have meetings, maybe have them right in the middle of the day when everybody overlaps, for example.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, I loved that recommendation. I was thinking a lot about that one. Just how much am I thinking about the diversity of chrono types that we have on our team and what people need. And we're all in different time zones. So of course that makes it a little more complex, but if you focus on meetings towards the center of the day, like you said, it makes it a lot easier for people to adapt and not force themselves to be really far outside their zone.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah. Right. Right.
Kristiana Corona
So I know another area that colleagues often deal with is jet lag. You know, going across time zones and continents and this, you know, in this global economy, we often can't avoid that. That's something that will happen. And so I was curious if you have any new or interesting strategies you can share that have been helpful for people to combat jet lag.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, some of these might be somewhat well known, but there is more and more data backing them up. And there's some new kind of always to me tricks scientists have pointed out. So, I mean, the first thing to really focus on, and you may have heard this, is to acclimate before arrival, as I say. So it's really preparing days ahead of a trip, especially if you're crossing a lot of time zones. Try to just slowly shift.
your body clocks a little bit. So if you're traveling, say East, so you're going to Europe, you know, for a few days beforehand, try to go to bed a little earlier. And so that means you can, you can, have power to shift your rhythms by your exposure to light. So maybe you really try to get early, early morning light those days, which helps your clocks shift a little earlier and get, you'll get tired your melatonin will start to rise a little earlier.
And then at the end of the day, you want to try extra hard to darken your environment so that doesn't get in the way of your melatonin rising. So that'll shift your rhythm a little earlier towards those Eastern time zones. And also, yeah, think about maybe trying to line up even your meal times a little earlier and so on. So my little tricks to remember prepare before you take to the air. Acclimate upon arrival. So that is once you arrive, really try to line up your, your rhythms with the local time. So get light in the morning, you know, just try to expose yourself as much as possible. You know, get those nights dark.
Kristiana Corona
Okay.
Lynne Peeples
eat at the times the locals are eating. So your more your breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local time, despite whatever your body might be seen at the time, you just you wanted to shift a little bit. And hopefully you've done some preparations with your rhythm. So it's not as drastic. But there are some caveats. So you also need to do some math. So depending on how far you've traveled, like I experienced, unfortunately, while reporting the book, there are things can backfire.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Lynne Peeples
So I crossed a lot of time zones to get to London for my trip. And if you are exposed to light before essentially the midpoint of your sleep, which is when your core body temperature dips to its lowest, your body's gonna take that light as a message that the sun hasn't actually set yet. Oops, you must've been confused. The sun is still up. And it's gonna shift earlier, right? Yeah. Yeah, so like if I'm...
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
So for example, I landed in London, I went out of the airport, it was the morning, it was bright, I was exposed to a lot of light. My body clocks were still ticking like, you know, late night, but not quite early morning yet. So was, they were ticking it before my body had reached its core temperature minimum. So that had shift, that actually likely shifted my clocks to the west. So rather than shifting to London time, they were probably shifting to LA time.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
But light after that midpoint, after your core body temperature minimum, will advance your clocks. So that's what you want if you're traveling east. So that's why early morning light is so helpful, but you have to be careful because if you've traveled so far that your body clocks are so far off, that can actually, yeah, do the reverse. Yeah, yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, that can backfire. yeah. So I was thinking about that scenario a little bit and you had mentioned somewhere in your book that, they have like different glasses you can buy now. Is that true? That will like shift the light color or tune the light color based on what you need. If it's like nighttime or daytime, can you talk a little bit about like, like either, okay, there's fancy glasses. There's probably just regular sunglasses too. Right. But like, what can you do if you're traveling there and then you get exposed to sunlight? What should you do?
Lynne Peeples
Yes.
Lynne Peeples
Right.
Lynne Peeples (28:59.476)
Yeah, so for example, when I landed in London, had I thought this through or done the math, I should have put on blue light blocking glasses. Or sunglasses, you know, are good, but like blue light blockers are even better because it's those blue wavelengths of light that are most powerful on our circadian rhythms. They are the strongest signal that it's daytime because the daytime sky has a lot of blue wavelengths. So that's how we evolved.
Kristiana Corona
Mmm.
Kristiana Corona
Gotcha.
Lynne Peeples
really any light that's bright will do it too, but blue wavelengths in particular. so yeah, there are, people have probably seen those blue light blocking glasses now. Those that are most effective tend to look kind of yellow, orange-ish. and, but then they also put blue light blocking like glazes on just a lot of eyeglasses now and even like contact lenses, which is a problem when you want light, when you want blue wavelengths of light during the day. that's a whole nother issue.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
But yeah, so there's the blue eyed walking glasses. There's also glasses now that will shine blue light directly into your eyes, which is wild. Yeah. So I got a pair from a team in the Netherlands that had created these. And this is just like tiny little beam that, you know, it's very concentrated blue light, which is again, the strongest signal. And...
Kristiana Corona
yeah, that's what, how does that work?
Kristiana Corona
Okay.
Lynne Peeples
So for example, if you wake up in the morning, it's still dark out, but you want your clocks to know it's daytime. Cause if you're too high north latitude, for example, you can put these glasses on and it's signaling to your master clock in your brain that the sun is rising. It's day. Let's, let's shift those clocks, you know, earlier to, acknowledge that.
Kristiana Corona
That's so fascinating. And it sounds like a lot of athletes like these kind of tech toys because when they're traveling a lot for games, they're trying to make up the difference between the jet lag and the time zone differences. And they're able to use these little type mechanisms to help their body adjust so they can perform better. Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
Yes.
Lynne Peeples
Exactly. And it's worth noting here that light has multiple effects on our bodies, right? I mean, helps obviously our visual system to see it affects our circadian rhythms. It also has directly energizing effects on our body that's outside of the circadian system. So for all those reasons, like, yeah, athletes will use them just to get energy. And we can do that for our cognitive function too. We can kind of create more alertness by getting that blue light.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
So since you brought up blue light blocking glasses, I know there's a portion of the book where you talk about blue light blocking glasses are really helpful in some circumstances. But in others, they might actually be doing harm because they're doing the opposite of what we want, which is we want to get blue light. Can you talk a little bit about blue light glasses and how we should think about using them or think about anything that's maybe coded with blue light coded?
Lynne Peeples
and
Kristiana Corona
technology just to make sure that our body is getting what it needs.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, I would, you know, be beware of glasses that yeah, boast that blue light blocking capability if there's something you need to wear all day. Because during the day you don't want anything blocking your access to those blue photons, which are really helpful. I mean, there's caveats there. Like if you're outside a lot during the day, the coating on an eyeglass, especially if it doesn't create a yellow tint, it's not blocking that much.
So you're still getting some, but if you're like a lot of us and are indoors, you know, 90 plus percent of the time is what the figure is for on average that we spend indoors and you're not getting outside much, especially in the winter time when your commute to and from work is in the dark. Then yeah, it can, you know, it can cut down on like the minimum, you know, the small amount of photons you get anyway. And that, you know, it's not helpful, but at night.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
They are helpful because you don't want those blue wavelengths to get to you.
Kristiana Corona
So basically during the day, our circadian rhythm needs the blue light. It's super important to kickstart those clocks to do the things that they need to do during the day. And then at night, we really don't want them. So like if we're in an office, for example, and we're just under typical lights that most offices would have, like are we getting enough?
Lynne Peeples
Yes.
Kristiana Corona
blue light from those office lights. Can you talk about like, yeah. And, and then we've got these blue light glasses on protecting us from our screens. Like what is, talk about, that scenario and what is actually happening?
Lynne Peeples
Nope! Right.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, I think this is the biggest roadblock for us in keeping our rhythms happy, is our indoor lifestyle. So the artificial lights we have in offices are, they're a fraction, they provide a fraction of the light that you would get outdoors. We evolved outdoors with that natural full spectrum sunlight. Even on a cloudy day, the light that we get
outdoors is orders of magnitude brighter than when we get indoors. And the wavelengths are also, you know, we would get that full spectrum indoors. Like our technology has evolved right from incandescent lights. You know, we got fluorescence now a lot of LEDs and the standard LED that we have now is has a bit more of the blue wavelengths of light, but it's still a lot less.
And it's also missing a lot of other wavelengths that are important, including violet light. We're finding the impacts of that. And it's just a lot dimmer. The issue is that our visual system is working separately from our circadian system. And our visual system does not need as much light to paint our world. So it could seem bright to us, but our circadian system is just not getting the memo. It's not learning. It's not getting the signal that it's daytime.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
And that's the problem. it's not, it's really about that, that contrast between day and night. So it's, if it's not getting that signal that it's daytime and at night where you're still blasting the same artificial lights indoors, it's just kind of dampening that whole thing, which in effect dampens all our rhythms. So, so the advice that scientists are passing along now is, know, during the day, if you can get close to a window, way better outdoors is the best.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
The closer you are to the window, next best. And then if you are stuck in the middle of an office or a basement during a workday, the key is to, you if you can get outside for just five minutes at a time here and there, if you can get outside on your lunch break, that's hugely helpful. You don't really need that much daylight. I mean, like a half an hour throughout the day can go a long ways, for example. And then as our technology is getting better, we're able to create LED lights that are
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
more closely mimicking daylight. There's still nothing compared to the real thing, but we're getting better. Scientists are incorporating more wavelengths of light. They're finding ways to make it intense without blinding us because indoors, yeah, it just seems so bright sometimes when it's, yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
It does. Well, and sometimes when you're outside, you're just like, this is really intense light. Like I have to put sunglasses on like it's too bright, but it doesn't, you're saying it doesn't take much. Like 30 minutes, an hour a day, something like that. Okay.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
No, it's not. Yes, yes, exactly. And I mean, that doesn't sound like much yet. So many of us don't get that. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kristiana Corona
I am totally guilty. Yeah. I remember you mentioned, in your book, how you did an experiment in your own house, just about the placement of your desk. And you started like standing next to a window sill and it was however many thousands of lumens coming from the sun. And then you took a few steps back and then it went way down and then you turn sideways to face your desk and then it went down and then you scooted into your desk and it was like,
Lynne Peeples
Yep.
Kristiana Corona
microscopically tiny. talk about just like what are some simple things we can do. You mentioned sit close to a window, but what else can we do to just make sure that we maximize whatever that little light exposure is that we get from windows.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, yeah, this was a little mind blowing to me. Just these tiny tweaks can go so far. So yeah, again, closer you are to a window, the better, because as you step back from a window, there's like an exponential drop in how many photons are making its way in. And this also depends on your windows. A lot of modern energy efficient windows are blocking a lot of the crucial wavelengths of light.
They're letting some in, but it's dampening it similar to like a blue light blocking glass. So another factor, maybe don't overthink that because that's probably out of your control. but for me, so I, I, yeah, I did, I pulled my desk like closer. So I have a window here. My desk is in front of me. I pulled the desk this way. so that more of the window was in front of my line of sight. Cause before it was like here.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Okay, yeah.
Lynne Peeples
And now it's more here. I have an angle of some daylight coming in, if that makes any sense. it's like, basically directly from the window to the eye, cause I'm, you know, I'm sideways or where's this parallel to the window here. but yeah, I'm getting some light in. So I was like a foot back and my readings from my spectrometer, which were measuring how much light I was getting shot up. So just like that small tweak.
Kristiana Corona
directly from the window to your eye.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
It's amazing.
Lynne Peeples
And then, you know, I got a keyboard tray to pull it out. just like doing everything I can to kind of pull myself close towards the middle of the room with more window in front of me. And, you know, nudging myself a little closer to the window. And then throughout the day, just, you know, letting myself, you know, procrastinate a little bit by just, you know, looking out the window and getting, yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Ha
Kristiana Corona
Well, you gave, yeah, you gave that a specific name, right? Like this is no longer just bird watching. This is getting circadian snacks.
Lynne Peeples
Great. Yep, yeah, source of mine Lisa Haishong, amazing woman. She deserves a claim for that term. But yeah, I'm getting a circadian snack right now. Yeah, there you go.
Kristiana Corona
I love it. I love it. And there was a point where you mentioned that even just getting an hour of exposure to sunlight or at least 40 lux of blue light has more impact than the caffeine from a 16 ounce coffee. Like that blows my mind.
Lynne Peeples
There is, yep, yep, there is a, right? Yeah, there was a, was a small study, but yeah, I mean, there's, you know, biology to back it up, that can be just as energizing, if not more, to get that light. So instead of that afternoon coffee, you know, maybe go out for a walk or get close to that window. Yeah, exactly.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah, so people are gonna hate me for asking you this, what about coffee? Is coffee a circadian friend or a circadian enemy?
Lynne Peeples
All right, so kind of an enemy, but I still drink it. So take that for what you want. The world can go on. I just limit my coffee now to the morning, to two cups, stop by 11 or noon, no more afternoon coffee. And the reason for that is, you know, maybe not a shock if we like step back and think about it, but caffeine stays in our system a long time.
Kristiana Corona
Okay, phew, the world can go on.
Lynne Peeples
The half life is something like five hours, five, six hours. So that means if you have a coffee at like 4 p.m., a little pick me up. You know, at 10 p.m. when you're thinking about going to bed, it's like half of that is still in circulation in your body and it's impacting your ability to fall asleep. You know, it's, will avoid going into the scientific details there, but, it does. And so yeah, if you, if you want quality sleep.
Kristiana Corona
Hahaha!
Lynne Peeples
don't want to mess up your rhythms, I would just try to limit it to early in the day so your body has time to break it down before you go to bed, minimize its impact. And maybe not, maybe not two Vente coffees, you know, when I say two coffees I'm talking smaller size. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
gallons? No. Okay, okay. Well, that's that's a relief. I thought it was going to go the other way and end all coffee.
Lynne Peeples
I mean, yeah, some scientists might push, but yeah, yeah, no. I can't do it. I can't do it. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
that's good to hear. That's good to hear. so let's shift gears for a second and just talk about the opposite of light, which is darkness and it's value for sleep. So, you know, I think about a lot of us, we get a lot of disrupted sleep or maybe we stay up really late and we're cramming away in front of the laptop, trying to finish a project or a paper or something that we need to get done and, and hit those deadlines. But our sleep is just kind of.
the last thing, right? Like we'll just put in whatever the hours are in front of the computer and go to bed at different times all the time or stay up really late during the weekends. So what are those late night cram sessions, whether it's in front of a computer or in front of a TV screen, what is that doing to our circadian rhythms?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, it's not helpful. I'm certainly, you know, I was more guilty of it before I'm trying to be better, but it's hard in our modern life, you know, to avoid all these things. But yeah, the later you are in front of a screen, getting blue light, just keeping your mind activated. You know, the more your circadian rhythm, your melatonin levels, it's going to shift, you know, it's going to throw that off.
And so, mean, there's a couple layers here. that yeah, it's avoiding that light at night. If you get that light at night, it's, you know, it's likely going to keep you awake longer. And because it keeps you awake longer, that means you're going to probably sleep in later if you have the option to, or you're going to not get enough sleep. And if, but if you sleep in later, you're going to miss that morning light, which is so crucial to reset your rhythms. And, know, you can create this snowball effect where you just kind of stay up later and later. Because interesting point here on average.
Most of our rhythms are a little longer, a little longer than 24 hours, which means we naturally want to drift. If we're not getting recalibrated on the regular, our bodies are going to naturally drift later and later and later. So a lot of us are night owls or we think we're night owls when we may not actually be night owls. just our behavior has caused us to shift. So anyway, so rewind back here, but yeah, so blue light at night, staying awake late. Definitely not helpful.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
Another key piece here is the consistency of our sleep schedule. So you mentioned social jet lag early on. Social jet lag is really that difference between when we go to bed during our work days, school days, and then on the weekends when we're trying to maybe catch up or have a life. If there's a big difference there, it's basically giving our clocks whiplash. It's giving ourselves a jet lag because we're essentially traveling across time zones on the weekend and back again.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Right.
Lynne Peeples
That's, that's throwing some disruption into our, our clock cycles as well. So yeah, staying up late if it, know, inconsistent, or yeah, you're essentially giving your body jet lag. You're not, you're not able to really optimize your rhythms. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
It's interesting too, how you talk about, it's a snowball effect. And so that one day of missing it kind of leads to the next day and the next day and the next day and that it, can drift over time. It's not just like, I'll make it up on the weekend. I'll just sleep in an extra so many hours on the weekend. It'll all be fine. Like there's a certain period of time where your body needs to actually recalibrate over time to get back to where it wants to be. Right. So that the habit of, of.
Lynne Peeples
Right. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
over time chronically staying up late, having that exposure to blue light is actually shifting your body kind of in negative ways, Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
Yep, no, exactly. So yeah, that's where it's really important to try to rein it back in with the light. And another tool that can be used, which sometimes is overused, is melatonin supplements. But if you do take them two, three hours before your bedtime, that can actually help kind of pull your rhythm back a bit. Rather than if you take them at bedtime, you're actually potentially making it even worse on yourself, because that can push your...
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Okay.
Kristiana Corona
Ha!
Lynne Peeples
your bedtime later because it's supposed to really be time to when your melatonin naturally rises, which is two or three hours before.
Kristiana Corona
okay. Before bed. Okay. So when you think about like most important changes that can help us really improve our sleep and get optimum sleep, can you just talk through just some of the top things that you see making the biggest difference? So melatonin would be a great one if you're really off, right? to, help start pulling you back, but what, what other things, do you recommend?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, so I'm just thinking about like my sleep routine would be, so yeah, trying to cut the lights two, three hours before bed, turning down the thermostat as well. Like we're primed to sleep best like mid sixties Fahrenheit. it's really, again, going back that contrast in your days. I mean, just think about if you're camping, for example, like the light, the brightness, then at night it gets really dark. Maybe you just have like a candle or a campfire. It's getting cooler.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
too right? So actually I break it down to the three things. So that's the contrast, right? Bright days, dark nights, you know, contrast your temperature rhythms. The second is to constrict. And there I'm talking about your meals and your calories that you're throwing into your body. science is really building that we should be constricting those hours to, I mean, the shorter, the better.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
But some scientists I talked to suggested that kind of the sweet spot would be 10 hours during the day and shifted on the earlier side. Your body is more ready, able to handle incoming calories earlier in the day than later in the day. So if you can restrict that to like 10 hours, awesome. Biggest thing is to cut off any incoming calories, a beverage, so a sip of wine or anything, to like three hours before bed.
At that point, you should really not have anything coming in because that's going to derail your rhythms, your sleep as well. And then finally, consistency. So contrast, constrict, consistency. So consistency again, is that trying to go to bed and get up at the same time every day, trying to eat your meals at the same time every day, trying to exercise at the same time every day. That'll keep your clocks, you know, anticipating things that are happening at the right time.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
I love it. You have the three C's. That's perfect. That's so easy to remember. I love it. Okay. So just last question here. In your book, you mentioned lots of cool products. Like you talk about how you use like electric candles at night instead of like bright overhead lights or different sun lamps or different. You've experimented with lots of things and glasses and whatnot. I'm just curious, like what are some of your...
Lynne Peeples
Yes.
Kristiana Corona
favorite circadian rhythm approved products or where could people go to find out more if they're kind of interested in introducing different things like this and experimenting with them.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah. so a couple of things, if you, if you really want to try some of the high tech stuff, including maybe a sun lamp for the winter time, I would go to, there's a website called Center for Environmental Therapeutics, or there's a group that's called that. They have a website and there they have vetted some products. So you can find some sun lamps and a few other things. think they have blue light blocking glasses there as well. Things that scientists have vetted, but
Just in general, these things don't have to be that high tech. I bought for $30 maybe like 12 fake candles that you mentioned that I turn on at night that give a nice glow to my place, help me see. You don't really need that much light to see at night. Your eyes have evolved to adapt to light and dark pretty well. So you can see pretty well.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
And it's really about, cutting off like the overhead lights at night, trying to use table lamps, try to use light bulbs that are on the warmer side rather than that stark, you know, white blue color. and yeah, just cutting the lights, you know, save energy at night. And then, you know, during the day, just try to get as much light as you can, you know, and daylighting is the best. and then you can maybe seek out some of those light bulbs that are, have more,
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. Yeah.
Lynne Peeples
intensity and more of that white blue wavelength.
Kristiana Corona
And you mentioned like some of these tunable LEDs, that's what you call them. They're available like everywhere, right? They're at most stores now. You just have to look for something that's tunable so you can see if it has like the amber and the blue and different tones.
Lynne Peeples
Right, right.
Lynne Peeples
Exactly. Yep. that's, you know, right now it's still kind of a wild west of that technology and, companies will throw out claims, but in general, like the idea works and, I think eventually in the next two years, we're going to get more standards and more regulation on it. In general, like, yeah, just using those basic concepts of the warmer at night and brighter during the day, you're not going to go wrong with seeking out products aligned.
Kristiana Corona
One thing I liked that you mentioned, and maybe it was one of the studies that you shared was like just turning off the overhead lights and just turning on small lamps or like candles or things like that. Like we all have them around the house. Maybe we just don't think about, making a shift and turning off like a bright bathroom light and just putting in like a really dim nightlight or something like that. but it's something that we can all do. It's very simple. and doesn't cost a lot of money.
Lynne Peeples
Yep, exactly.
Lynne Peeples
No, and you, yeah, you touch on a huge point. I think one of the easiest things you can do is that bathroom nightlight. Cause if you walk into a bathroom, flip on that overhead light at 3 a.m. when you have to go to the bathroom, mean, scientists are finding that that could really, really affect your rhythms and really affect your sleep. So yeah, I bought, you know, $10, a little plugin, dimmable amber colored nightlight in my bathroom. I highly recommend that. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Easy peasy. then you also mentioned some, like you've tried some different apps. Are there any apps that you like that can help you monitor your circadian rhythm or help you understand when to get the right light, that kind of stuff? If people are struggling with figuring it out.
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, there's, there are more and more apps out there all the time. I'm probably like, you know, a year or so behind on like seeking them out since I finished writing the book, but I do have one called Rise that kind of taps into your sleep data. Cause I have a Fitbit and you know, there's apps now that we are pulling data. and that kind of shows, it's predicting your rhythms throughout the day. So it kind of helps, you know, helps me time.
Kristiana Corona
Mm-hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Lynne Peeples
productivity again. And again, that kind of aligns with what I've personally found about like those late morning hours being my most alert. So yeah, that's one to try, you know, I would just, I would Google keep, keep an eye out because there's so many now and I know, know, Fitbit or Ring has incorporated more circadian rhythm data into their, their algorithms, and they probably provide some of that kind of prediction as well.
Kristiana Corona
Hmm.
Kristiana Corona
Amazing.
Lynne Peeples
And I would anticipate more of the same. think it's a trend for getting more of that data. But again, take it with a grain of salt too. mean, none of these things are precise, but they do help you kind of see trends over time. And I found it helpful.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Yeah. And it sounds like our body is really the best intuition, like being able to, to listen to yourself and to notice and to pay attention to what is happening, in your productivity and your energy throughout the day. Instead of just blowing past it and like slurping 10 cups of coffee or downing a bunch of energy drinks, like just allowing ourselves to notice what our body needs. Yeah. So, okay.
Lynne Peeples
You
Lynne Peeples
Exactly.
Kristiana Corona
If my listeners want to hear more about you or more from you, where can they find you?
Lynne Peeples
Yeah, it's probably best is my website. So LynnePeeples.com I've got links for the book and my social media and other other media. So yeah, find me there. Yeah.
Kristiana Corona
Awesome. I'm just going to pull this up one more time. So definitely encourage everyone to check out Lynne's book, The Inner Clock, and you can find that on Amazon. I also listened to it on Audible while I was driving, which was fantastic. It's pretty much everywhere and every bookstore now. And so, yeah, this has been so fun and I will...
Definitely be sharing all the resources that you mentioned, the websites and the different things to help point people in the right direction in the show notes for this episode. So I'll definitely cover off on those at worthytoleadpodcast.com / 12. So Lynne, I just want to thank you again so much for coming on this podcast. was such a pleasure.
You are so brilliant, my friend, and I loved hearing all of your stories and adventures as you went on this circadian journey. So thank you.
Lynne Peeples
thank you so much. Now it's been a pleasure chatting with you. Love your podcast. This is fabulous. Thank you.
Kristiana Corona
Yes, thank you.
