Changing the time you do exercise can help you cope with jet lag

According to a new study, exercise could help you move your biological clock forward or backward, whether you do it in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening. This discovery could help people deal with disturbances in the body's internal clock, such as jet lag or shift work.

The team found that training at 7:00 am or between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm shifted the biological clock to an earlier time, while exercise between 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm delayed it. Exercising in the middle of the night (1am to 4am) or mid-morning (10am) has had little effect. The results are reported in The Journal of Physiology.

Our biological clock, or circadian rhythm, is the 24-hour cycle of many physiological processes that govern hunger, drowsiness, and so on. This cycle depends on internal and external factors. Exercise has long been thought to be involved, but its exact role is not yet clearly defined. This study helps answer this question, although, given the fact that participants were active people, the results may not match the average person.

"It is known that exercise alters the body clock." We were able to clearly show in this study that exercise delays and advances the time, "said Senior Professor Shawn Youngstedt of Arizona State University (ASU). in a report. "This is the first study to compare the effects of exercise on the body clock and could open the possibility of using exercise to help counter the negative effects. of jet lag and shift work. "

The team, from the ASU and the University of California at San Diego, examined the biological clock of 101 participants for up to 5.5 days after training. They measured melatonin levels in the urine of volunteers and used the peak hormone to determine the reference time of the biological clock.

Once this was established, participants would run or walk on a treadmill for one hour during a particular time slot for three consecutive days. After the third session, the team rebadessed each participant's biological clock and looked for possible changes from the baseline.

The team plans to continue studying this issue further. They are curious to know more about the intensity of the impact of exercise on the circadian cycle and to determine if the shift can be increased or decreased by combining exercise. exposure to bright light or melatonin.