Resetting the clock: successful bodyhacking

Well, this is somewhat amazing. A tip off the Internet works!

Lifehacker recently picked up a story I’d read some months ago, but not really thought too deeply about, planning as I am to remain in this timezone for the immediate future. The story? How to reset your body clock by not eating for 16 hours.

We all know the theory about getting up early. Set your alarm for an early time every day. Get up without fail. Immediately do some exercise or take a shower to get the blood flowing. Even if you go to bed stupidly late, still get up at the same time. But somehow, it’s never quite worked for me. My early-morning willpower just can’t overcome the miasma of “I went to bed at 6am after a late night’s hacking and I can reprogram my alarm while entirely asleep”.

Something clicked when I read the Lifehacker piece, though. Maybe my recent cycle of work-late, bed-late, get-up-later, work-later, bed-later wasn’t due to lack of willpower in the morning, but due to my internal body clock drifting as a result of what I ate. Coincidentally I’d been keeping a food diary at the same time as a protracted fortnight of late working nights, and there it was, writ large in the data: I got up late when I’d eaten late.

OK, that’s clearly not the only factor. Perhaps the late night activity of my brain due to work was causing the drift, perhaps it’s a result of the numbing effects of BBC iPlayer programmes on teenage mothers, perhaps it was the weather. But this was something I could test.

Step one. Set a golden rule not to eat after 8pm. This was derived from the 16-hour idea, with supporting anecdotal evidence that a 12-hour fast was sufficient for some people. 8pm means getting up (and eating) at 8am. That’s four or five hours earlier than my drifted body clock was managing; my internal ‘alarm’ was set to a solid 12:15 for several months.

Step two. Obey golden rule. Simple enough; nothing but water after eight.

Step three. Set alarm, wake up, and (to ruin the scientific nature of this experiment) schedule meetings at 9am to force the issue.

Step four. Observe results.

It really is incredible. After about three days of not eating beyond 8pm I was getting up early just fine, and feeling way more alert too. I then pushed the rule a bit, working late and eating late, and tested to see when I would naturally wake up – 10am. That’s a reset of over two hours! I’m entirely sure that if I keep this up for another week or so, I’ll have a circadian rhythm in line with my actual timezone for the first time in years.

Way to go bodyhacking!