Don’t be fooled by the morning-versus-evening-person-feel-good story. Light is the most important zeitgeber for your circadian rhythm. A descriptive and exploratory study linked adolescent’s psychiatric problems to misaligned circadian rhythms. What do you know about light and circadian rhythms?

Adolescent circadian patterns link with psychiatric problems: A multimodal approach

Regarding self-reported circadian preference classifications, those with a preference for eveningness were more likely to have severe depression (p = 0.0002), panic disorder (p = 0.003), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) (p = 0.019), and OCD (p = 0.023) when compared to those with intermediate and morning preferences. Additionally, higher comorbidity was associated with a preference for eveningness (r = 0.26, p = 0.0001).

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we found that sleep regularity and timing reflect wellbeing better than sleep duration. Sleep duration may include more noise stemming from fluctuating sleep need, while sleep timing and circadian rhythms have a more solid biological basis. Furthermore, several genes controlling circadian rhythms (such as CLOCK, CRYs, and PERs) have been shown to play a part in the pathophysiology of nearly all psychiatric disorders (Pritchett et al., 2012; Kirlioglu and Balcioglu 2020). Thus, it is likely that circadian patterns represent the neural substrate of mental wellbeing from a genetic, molecular, neurohumoral (i.e. HPA axis and melatonergic system), and behavioural level (Kirlioglu and Balcioglu 2020).

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The current study shows thus, that biological circadian length may indeed have an even more pronounced association with psychiatric disorders than with actualized sleep timing.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395622001856?via%3Dihub
Authors: Liisa Kuula, Risto Halonen, Jari Lipsanen, Anu-Katriina Pesonen

For the next article in the series, go to https://www.modernsamurai.info/pas20230822/