Simran Arora

Living In One Time Zone, Working In Another? Here's How Your Body Clock Pays The Price

late shifts

sleep disorders

<strong>New Delhi: </strong>You do not need to board a flight to experience jet lag. Late-night calls with colleagues in other countries, hours of streaming that bleed into the early morning, and schedules that shift from one day to the next are doing something to the body that sleep medicine has a name for: <span>social jet lag</span>. The time zone you are living in biologically and the one your calendar operates in are no longer the same, and the gap between them has a cost.

Talking about social jet lag, Dr. Shivani Swami, Additional Director – Pulmonology, CK Birla Hospitals, Jaipur, said, "The <span>circadian rhythm</span> is the body’s internal clock, and it governs considerably more than sleep. Hormone release, metabolism, cardiovascular function, and immune response all run on its schedule. The rhythm is calibrated by light, which is why it aligned for most of human history with the movement of the sun. Artificial light, particularly the blue light that screens emit, disrupts this calibration by suppressing melatonin, the hormone the body uses to initiate sleep. When melatonin is delayed, sleep is delayed, and when sleep is delayed repeatedly, the clock begins to drift."

<strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.healthandme.com/health-wellness/10-sleep-hygiene-tips-that-will-help-you-sleep-better-article-151044700" data-type="tilCustomLink" target="_blank">10 Sleep Hygiene Tips That Will Help You Sleep Better</a>

<h2>How does stress impact your sleep cycle?</h2>

Stress compounds this. Cortisol, which keeps the brain alert and responsive during the day, stays elevated under chronic pressure into the evening hours, when it should be receding. The body is physically exhausted. The brain is still running. This is the state many people describe and cannot quite explain: tired in every physical sense, but unable to stop.

<h2>Short-term effects of circadian rhythm disruption</h2>

The short-term consequences are familiar: difficulty falling asleep, fragmented nights, fatigue that carries into the following day, reduced concentration, and a lower threshold for irritability. What receives less attention is what accumulates beneath these surface effects over months and years. Sustained circadian disruption is associated with an increased risk of metabolic conditions, including obesity and diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and compromised immune function. Sleep is when the body conducts repair work that cannot happen any other way, and the systems that depend on it, such as hormonal, metabolic, cardiovascular, and immune systems, do not have an alternative schedule to fall back on.

<h3>How working in night shifts and binge-watching content affects sleep</h3>

Binge-watching has become a particular contributor in ways that are easy to underestimate. Watching multiple episodes late into the night does two things simultaneously: it pushes sleep later, and it overstimulates the brain at precisely the moment it needs to be winding down. The same applies to late-night work calls followed by early commitments the next morning. Sleeping in on weekends to compensate feels logical but tends to make things worse, resetting the clock in a direction that makes the following week harder to begin.

<strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.healthandme.com/health-wellness/the-tired-but-wired-phenomenon-why-you-feel-exhausted-yet-cannot-sleep-article-153937630" data-type="tilCustomLink" target="_blank">The 'Tired but Wired' Phenomenon: Why You Feel Exhausted Yet Cannot Sleep</a>

<strong>What is <span rel="noindex">sleep anchoring</span>?</strong>

Sleep specialists increasingly discuss a concept called sleep anchoring as a practical intervention for people whose schedules genuinely cannot be made consistent. The idea is to fix a core block of sleep, typically three to four hours, at the same time every day, regardless of what else shifts. This anchor gives the circadian rhythm something stable to organise around, even when total sleep hours vary. For shift workers or those managing multiple time zones, it offers a way to preserve some biological regularity without requiring full schedule consistency.

<strong>Simple ways to reset your <span rel="noindex">body clock</span> naturally</strong>

Beyond anchoring, the adjustments that make the most difference are not complicated. Screens set aside an hour before bed allow melatonin to rise without interference. Daylight exposure during the day helps reset the clock in the right direction. A brief wind-down practice before sleep gives the brain a transition rather than asking it to move directly from stimulation to rest. Shifting a sleep schedule gradually, by thirty minutes over several days, is more effective than doing it abruptly because the body adapts to incremental change more readily than to sudden ones.

The body still runs on a biological clock that predates electricity, screens, and global work schedules by a considerable margin. Modern life has made that clock harder to follow, and the consequences of ignoring it are no longer abstract.

Health Conditions A-Z

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late-shifts

social jet lag

circadian rhythm

working in shifts

body clock

sleep anchoring

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New Delhi: You do not need to board a flight to experience jet lag. Late-night calls with colleagues in other countries, hours of streaming that bleed into the early morning, and schedules that shift from one day to the next are doing something to the body that sleep medicine has a name for: social jet lag. The time zone you are living in biologically and the one your calendar operates in are no longer the same, and the gap between them has a cost.What is social jet lag?Talking about social jet lag, Dr. Shivani Swami, Additional Director – Pulmonology, CK Birla Hospitals, Jaipur, said, "The circadian rhythm is the body’s internal clock, and it governs considerably more than sleep. Hormone release, metabolism, cardiovascular function, and immune response all run on its schedule. The rhythm is calibrated by light, which is why it aligned for most of human history with the movement of the sun. Artificial light, particularly the blue light that screens emit, disrupts this calibration by suppressing melatonin, the hormone the body uses to initiate sleep. When melatonin is delayed, sleep is delayed, and when sleep is delayed repeatedly, the clock begins to drift."Read more: 10 Sleep Hygiene Tips That Will Help You Sleep BetterHow does stress impact your sleep cycle?Stress compounds this. Cortisol, which keeps the brain alert and responsive during the day, stays elevated under chronic pressure into the evening hours, when it should be receding. The body is physically exhausted. The brain is still running. This is the state many people describe and cannot quite explain: tired in every physical sense, but unable to stop.Short-term effects of circadian rhythm disruptionThe short-term consequences are familiar: difficulty falling asleep, fragmented nights, fatigue that carries into the following day, reduced concentration, and a lower threshold for irritability. What receives less attention is what accumulates beneath these surface effects over months and years. Sustained circadian disruption is associated with an increased risk of metabolic conditions, including obesity and diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and compromised immune function. Sleep is when the body conducts repair work that cannot happen any other way, and the systems that depend on it, such as hormonal, metabolic, cardiovascular, and immune systems, do not have an alternative schedule to fall back on.  How working in night shifts and binge-watching content affects sleepBinge-watching has become a particular contributor in ways that are easy to underestimate. Watching multiple episodes late into the night does two things simultaneously: it pushes sleep later, and it overstimulates the brain at precisely the moment it needs to be winding down. The same applies to late-night work calls followed by early commitments the next morning. Sleeping in on weekends to compensate feels logical but tends to make things worse, resetting the clock in a direction that makes the following week harder to begin.Read more: The 'Tired but Wired' Phenomenon: Why You Feel Exhausted Yet Cannot SleepWhat is sleep anchoring? Sleep specialists increasingly discuss a concept called sleep anchoring as a practical intervention for people whose schedules genuinely cannot be made consistent. The idea is to fix a core block of sleep, typically three to four hours, at the same time every day, regardless of what else shifts. This anchor gives the circadian rhythm something stable to organise around, even when total sleep hours vary. For shift workers or those managing multiple time zones, it offers a way to preserve some biological regularity without requiring full schedule consistency.Simple ways to reset your body clock naturallyBeyond anchoring, the adjustments that make the most difference are not complicated. Screens set aside an hour before bed allow melatonin to rise without interference. Daylight exposure during the day helps reset the clock in the right direction. A brief wind-down practice before sleep gives the brain a transition rather than asking it to move directly from stimulation to rest. Shifting a sleep schedule gradually, by thirty minutes over several days, is more effective than doing it abruptly because the body adapts to incremental change more readily than to sudden ones.The body still runs on a biological clock that predates electricity, screens, and global work schedules by a considerable margin. Modern life has made that clock harder to follow, and the consequences of ignoring it are no longer abstract.