The zeitgeber challenge

The word means "external or environmental cue that entrains or synchronizes an organism's biological rhythms to the Earth's 24-hour light/dark cycle and 12-month cycle." This plays into helping with sleep but there are other supportive structures around that.

I basically work with 3 things: Light, diet, and physical movement/exercise.

Here's a real simple stripped down version I'm doing, you'll see it's really simple but it's about being consistent. At the same time, it's said you can see results in as little as 10 days. I'm doing each of these things at the same time give or take 20 minutes but no more than that, if so I reset that particular streak.

1. Face the general direction of the sun in the morning for 20-30 minutes
2. 10+ minutes of movement/exercise, at 3 set times - first session can overlap with the light session as long as I'm facing that direction
3. Eat 3 meals at set times
4. Wind down for sleep/block blue light at set time - which would be 9:30 for me btw

I'm not including specific times because you can set up your own structure, for example I eat in a 8 hour window but don't expect people with no experience with that kind of intermittent fasting to jump straight into 8.

Bonus: Breathwork/meditation twice a day at set times

That's it. Goal is 30 days. This is about having a consistent, stable structure that serves as a kind of container for other things. Obviously some of it like the exercise component can be ramped up, but the point here is consistency with time, and these things have a biological impact.

I'll reply only to comment but edit one post to update numbers/streaks.

 

Streak progress post:

Start: 6/19/20 Current:
Day 1
Light:1
AM movement:1
Mid-day movement:1
PM movement:1
Breakfast:1
Lunch:1
Dinner:1
AM meditation:1
PM meditation:
Total consecutive days of all points satisfied:

 

Ahh a bit late for the PM meditation, will still do it but resetting to day one tomorrow.

Sat 6/20 - off schedule since I had a lot packed in, partly needed social time which is not that easy to come by and have to work with other people but I will get back to it. Ahh the weekend social jetlag.. (won't get to the point of jetlag thats for sure)