“For many people, all of the anchors to their schedule have changed or disappeared, so it is important to recreate as many as possible at home,” says board-certified sleep medicine researcher W. Christopher Winter, M.D., of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How To Fix It. “We need to rebuild these markers in our lives.” There’s a whole cascade that happens when you get out of your normal circadian rhythm. It affects your light/dark schedule, which can put your mealtime and exercise routine out of sync, too, says Winter. Basically, something as seemingly minor as going to bed whenever you feel like it can throw a lot of things in your life out of whack. Changing up your bedtime can also make you feel more tired, even if you’re sleeping in the next day. “When you alter a sleep schedule more than an hour difference, your body feels tired because your circadian rhythm has not been synced,” says double-board-certified integrative medicine doctor Amy Shah, M.D. But fatigue is only one thing you might deal with if your bedtime is all over the place. “Everything from our digestion, immune system activity, and hormones are regulated by our sleep-wake cycles,” Moday says. Getting out of a good sleep rhythm when you’re also stressed out (like most of the world is at this moment) can even increase your risk of getting sick, Moday points out. And that’s really not something you want to mess with right now. Plus, it features PharmaGABA, which can promote increased relaxation and deeper sleep, along with jujube, which has calming and relaxing properties.* It might take a little while to get into your new bedtime routine, and that’s OK. But once you’re back into a rhythm, you’ll be surprised how much better you’ll feel.
