![]() ![]() You might feel the urge to hit the restroom, or you might experience a sudden craving for sugar, carbs, caffeine, or (if you smoke) a cigarette.Your body might feel heavy, your face slack, your eyes glazed, unfocused, or droopy. You start feeling fatigued, spacey, groggy, irritable, distracted, hungry, or fidgety.Your productivity and performance start to decline as your body enters what’s known as an “ ultradian trough”-an energetic low point. After about an hour and a half or two hours, you begin experiencing this accumulation of all this detritus as stress.Meanwhile, the byproducts of all your mental and physical activity- metabolic waste, snippets of data, cellular debris-are building up in your system.Within about an hour and a half, you reach the apex of your productivity, entering what’s known as an “ ultradian performance peak.”.As you start your day and get yourself into a flow of sustained activity and mental focus, your body and brain start burning through a significant amount of oxygen, glucose, and other energetic fuels.Here’s how your ultradian rhythms play out while you’re going about your daily business: During the day, however, they have a far more tangible impact on how you feel. While you’re sleeping, they mostly affect things like your REM patterns, so you don’t notice them much. Your ultradian rhythms operate continually, day and night. Ultradian Performance Peaks and Ultradian Troughs Like circadian rhythms, they have a powerful effect on your body, and when they are disrupted or ignored, they can really mess with your health, happiness, and general well-being. Basically, ultradian rhythms are like mini-versions of circadian rhythms (our twenty-four-hour cycles of sleep and waking), except that they are much shorter, occurring many times over a single day. The primary purpose of ultradian rhythms is to manage the cycles of energy production, output, and recovery that occur in all humans (as well as animals, plants, yeast, and fungi). Ultradian means “many times a day.” Rhythms refers to the regular oscillating (up-and-down) wave patterns these cycles follow. Much like cardiac rhythms and brain waves, ultradian rhythms are measurable, observable, quantifiable physiological patterns that your body must maintain in order to operate properly. ![]() Rather, they are biological patterns hardwired into your DNA-a function of your “clock genes,” which dictate how your body functions in time. The first thing to know is about ultradian rhythms is that they are not some esoteric concept like chakras or third eyes (although I respect those things on their own merits). Okay, so what are these ultradian rhythms and what can they do to help you think, choose, and perform better in every part of your life? I’m so glad you asked. They also play a big role in we think about as our “willpower” and our ability to carry out the decisions we believe to be in our own best interest. Our ultradian rhythms matter mightily to virtually all aspects of our physical, mental, and emotional health. ![]() But just like heartbeats and eye blinks, we all have them, and we need them to function properly. They’re not something we learn about in school, or from most health media. Never heard of ultradian rhythms? You’re not alone. If you’re like most health-seekers I know, what you actually have is an ultradian rhythm problem. Think you have a willpower problem? Hmmm. Use the Science of Ultradian Rhythms To Boost Productivity, Energy, and Willpowerīy Pilar Gerasimo, founding editor of Experience Life magazine, co-host of the top-rated The Living Experiment podcast, and author of The Healthy Deviant: A Rule Breaker’s Guide to Being Healthy in an Unhealthy World. ![]()
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