Dr. Amy Shah explains how aligning habits with your circadian rhythm boosts energy and metabolism. Eighty percent of your genes are regulated by circadian rhythms. Morning sunlight, stopping food 2-3 hours before bed, and fasted morning workouts can reset metabolism and reverse type-2 diabetes in some cases.
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In fact, you're reminding me of Satchin Panda, whose work I feature in a couple of books, who's been on the show. And you probably know Sachin.
Yeah, I love him.
Obviously. Also from India, very Circadian Salk Institute, circadian studying kind of guy. And he talks about how his mom in India, he's like, just don't eat after the sun goes down. And after two or three months, her type 2 diabetes resolved just from changing the timing of food. And you talk about circadian fasting in your I'm so effing tired book. And you call it. What do you say? You say it's the fountain of energy no one knows about. So really, it's all in that universe. What does it do for your energy? And what do you write about in your book?
It's. It's the one thing, Dave, I would say that maybe you've heard of, you know, getting rid of processed oils, you know, gluten, dairy. But the thing that I found was life changing for me as a physician, as a nutrition major, as a wellness expert was this concept of living with circadian rhythms. I found that to be life changing for myself. So that's why I talk about it so much, because it's free, it's accessible, it makes so much scientific sense. The Nobel Prize in medicine went to the biology of circadian rhythms affects 80% of our genes. And so, you know, getting sunlight in the morning is so important because when you get light through, you know, a small light in your bedroom or, you know, a overhead light, you're getting about, you know, maybe 500 lux or 800 lux and maybe 1000 if you have like bright, bright fluorescent lighting. When you go outside, even before sunrise on a cloudy day, you get 10,000 lux, and on a sunny day, you get 100,000 lux. And this is literally telling your retina to signal to your brain that it's time to wake up, be energized, start that circadian clock, start metabolism and start like focus and energy. So that's why you feel so good when you get it. When you're on vacation, you get a dose, big dose of natural light in the morning. And when I tell people that, they're like really shocked. Like so many people have messaged me and say, well, I live in a place that's really, you know, hard to get outside or it's. My schedule doesn't allow for it. So I really realized what that even something as simple as getting bright light in the morning is really difficult for Americans. And then the same issue happens late at night. I said two to three hours before bed. So say like after, around sundown, maybe a little bit after sundown, two to three hours before bed, stop eating. And you know, I was addicted to food, too. I get it. Like, I couldn't go more than an hour or two without eating. So I get it. If you, you know, stop eating at 7, a lot of us will feel like around 9, 9:30, you'll feel kind of that tinge of like, I want a snack, I want to eat something before bed. It's because our bodies are on the sugar roller coaster. So try to push through if you can. Or you have a tea or coffee or something without many calories. I allow up to about 40 calories, as long as it's not sugar. And then you sleep. You sleep at good 8 hours, you wake up, maybe you do a fasted workout in the sunlight. And that alone will fix so much of your energy, gut health, immune and hormone issues like that. One thing, if you get nothing else out of this.
