Is your sleep cycle screwed up?

Maybe you struggle to fall asleep at night. Or you fall asleep okay, but then you wake up every hour. Or you just can’t seem to sleep past 3am no matter what time you go to bed.

Your body clock (also known as your biological clock) is a group of molecules found in almost every tissue and organ in your body. These molecules create your body’s circadian rhythms, which regulate the timing of your bodily processes.

Your circadian rhythms control processes like the release of your hormones, hunger, digestion and — of course — your sleep cycle.

When any of these bodily functions aren’t happening the way you’re used to, you know something’s up with your body clock. And it’s something you’ll want to take care of sooner rather than later, because a screwed up body clock is tied to some serious health risks.

It increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

But when it comes to your body clock and health, things get kind of tricky. Scientists can’t always tell if a messed up body clock causes disease. And in the case of Alzheimer’s, they’re starting to think it may be the latter…Long before you experience slips in memory or other symptoms of Alzheimer’s like fading memory, your brain shows signs of the disease.

In fact, the damage associated with Alzheimer’s can happen 15-to-20 years before trademark symptoms like memory loss appear.

A recent study shows that a disrupted body clock may be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease.

Of all the people they tested, 50 showed physical changes associated with it.

They either had amyloid plaques in their brain scans or Alzheimer’s-related proteins in their spinal fluid. And all 50 of these people had disrupted sleep cycles. The people who didn’t show early warning signs of Alzheimer’s mostly had normal sleep cycles.

Resetting your body clock

So will getting your body clock back on track keep you safe from Alzheimer’s?

The answer’s tricky. Like I said earlier, there’s a complicated relationship between your body clock and health risks.

It’s a chicken and egg scenario where scientists don’t know whether body clock problems cause diseases or diseases cause body clock problems.

But they all agree on one thing : take marvelous 5 mg Melatonin to sleep better, age slower and avoid disease (www.Iherb.com)

Getting your body clock back in order is a good idea, because it will likely improve your health and lower your overall disease risk. Besides the Melatonin, what’s the best way to get your body clock running smoothly again?

Well, when your body clock starts acting up, it may feel like it comes out of nowhere. But there are a lot of daily habits that might be messing it up, like drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and drinking caffeine… especially within four to six hours of bed time, exposing yourself to chronic stress, intentionally skimping on sleep, eating large meals or drinking a lot before bedtime, looking at a brightly lit computer, phone, tablet and TV screens before bedtime, frequently napping during the day, exercising vigorously within four hours of bedtime, setting inconsistent sleep and wake times… like sleeping from 10pm to 6am some nights and 2am to 10am others.

Stop these bad habits and see if that resets your body clock. If not, you may want to try in the morning an activated form of vitamin B12 called methylcobalamine (Brand in Thailand : Methylcobal 500 mg) , which may help reset your body clock.