Circadian Rhythm and the Gut with Dr Laura Brown

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Welcome to another episode of the SIBO Doctor Podcast. I'm your host, Dr Nirala Jacobi. And today's topic, we'll discuss circadian rhythms and the influence of natural cycles and body clocks on digestion and general health. And my expert today, my guest today is Dr. Laura Brown, who is a naturopathic doctor with a functional medicine approach. She practices in Toronto. She's the owner of South End Natural Medicine and a bestselling author of Beyond Digestion. And in her book she has a chapter on circadian rhythms. So I'm really happy to talk to her today. So welcome Dr. Laura Brown to the SIBO Doctor Podcast. Really excited to talk about your topic today.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Thanks Nirala, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm pretty passionate about this topic.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Wonderful. So we're talking about circadian rhythms and its influences on the digestive tract or if there are other influences that influence the circadian rhythms. So let's start with just getting everybody on the same page and talk about circadian rhythms and what does that mean. I think people have a general idea, but it's good to just get the basic information first.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Absolutely. And I find even I myself will go back to the basic sometimes just to make sure that I get my mindset in the right direction. Circadian comes from the Latin word circa, which means around or approximately a certain time of day. So circadian rhythm, we think a lot in our 24 hour clocks and in our body basically ensure that anything that's going on inside of us is centrally coordinated. We have an area in our brain that is called our a super cosmic nucleus, and that's in charge of being our central clock, like the grand central station clock. So that is in charge of our circadian rhythm. And it's basically a wave, a biological wave or a pattern that's happening around a certain time. And we typically think of things in a 24 hour period

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

And it really influences all living things. It influences plants and microbes and anything that's alive is responding to the waxing and the waning of daylight.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Absolutely, yeah. There's external cues that help us keep on schedule, and these are called zeitgebers and includes light, as you mentioned. So our light dark cycles, but it also includes temperature purification cycles, fasting or fed states, so eating windows or fasting times, as well as physical activity. So there's many different cues that come in to play, and there's things like travel that mess it up too.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

So let's talk about that a little because I think people are very familiar with jet lag and especially when you're traveling eastbound, it seems to be more difficult to adjust to the time than if you're traveling westbound. And I certainly know that because traveling to and from Australia is really a long way. And adjusting to time zones is often time when we experience also more digestive issues, potentially our motility slows down. We're eating at the wrong time that our body doesn't really know what to do with that and it takes a few days to adjust to this. So can you talk a bit more about that?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we already know that sleep disruption alone can predict irritable bowel syndrome. We know that about 30% of those who work on a 24 hour on-call shift will experience irregular bowel or IBS, indigestion or sometimes both. And so the shift work, jet lag, as you said, eating at different times because we know that eating window or the fasting state is part of our cue to this rhythm happening. And then also when we talk about travel, we talk about the electromagnetic pull that we have. And some people think, oh, electromagnetic pull, whatever. But I mean, just think of the birds and you mentioned this happens in every living organism. How do the birds know when to fly south or when to fly north? How do they know? This is part of their circadian rhythms?

So we have rhythms built into us that are part of electromagnetic connection to the earth, and there's different parts of the earth that have different types of pulls. And we all are [inaudible 00:06:20] things with electromagnetic smog, like too many electromagnetic devices out there that are pulling us in different directions. And some people are more sensitive than others, so this also will disrupt our circadian rhythm.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

And you mentioned different Zeitgebers. I'm going to pronounce it the German way because I'm German. So Zeitgeber is a German word for time giver. So it gives the body a sense of time of I guess within the circadian rhythm. And you mentioned the purification cycle, and this is something that in naturopathic circles or in our education way back when we learned about there's a different time, for example, the liver detoxifies easier or does some dumping, there's also acid dumping at night. Can you talk a little bit about purification cycles as it relates to the circadian rhythm?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that you bring up the Chinese medicine calendar, is that what you're referring to, Nirala?

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

There's Ayurvedic cycles, there's Chinese medicine cycles, and I think that's been somewhat, or I actually don't know how much of that we know from modern science if that's actually all that accurate.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Well, I think there is some accuracy to it. If we're functioning well, we know that these things in rhythms that are happening. We know that one to 3:00 AM, if we're waking up at 1:00 AM, typically our livers on overdrive. And what are you doing when you wake up at 1:00 AM, usually you're making lists of stuff. It's that mind overdrive and this is not helpful. And then usually between one and 3:00 PM you're tired, it switches. So that that's kind of the liver working overtime. The kidney's I think is three to 5:00 PM or five to 7:00 PM but if it's switched, if you're waking up at 5:00 AM and things are going on, sometimes it's there. People that are waking up at three to 5:00 AM sometimes it's the large intestine, and if that's off, we're thinking of digestive, we're thinking of microbiome. So there's different times that things are happening.

So this is according to Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic calendars. There was times when different organs would function, and this is what we're talking about with the circadian rhythm and that master clock giving us times of day that things do things. But as you drill into the 2022 latest research, we're able to look at the microbiome and it's circadian rhythm. Because our microbiome is that is not really us. It's in us, it's the bugs or the viruses, the bacteria that are living in our microbiome. And these are helping us digest our food but they also, as they ferment in the large intestine, as they ferment fibers out of our foods, they make what's called sometimes term postbiotics or short chain fatty acids or secondary bio acids. But they're producing these byproducts, whatever you want to label them, they're producing byproducts from fermenting the fiber in our diet.

And these byproducts are responsible for going to different areas in our gastrointestinal tract and turning on genes at different hours of the day. So it's very important that we have a balanced microbiome creating a balance of these byproducts so that the genes are turned on and off. And this is working inherently with our own circadian rhythm. So these bugs in our gut have a circadian rhythm, which is working hand in hand with our own body circadian rhythm. And if either one is messed up, then things are just not coordinated properly. And this is where we get some of the issues related around digestion, the IBS, the constipation, the diarrhea, the headaches, the different things that are happening with regards to just out of sync waves our circadian rhythms.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

So that's a really fascinating information that our... We know a lot about the microbiome, we are constantly learning more about it, but that they're intimately linked to somehow our circadian rhythms. And I think the intestinal clock, can it be, I guess what I'm asking is when you are saying that bacteria are turning on genes, are we seeing that in people that have night shifts, that have very, very irregular schedules? Are we seeing these effects of the microbiome more prominently in these people? And what are we seeing other than IBS symptoms?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the gut rhythm itself is affected by stress. So anything that instigates stress and shift work is one of those things. Jet lag is one of those things. Anything that affects our circadian rhythm, we talked about the light, the temperature, the feeding windows or fasting windows. These things will all affect and be part of stress. But other parts of stress, it's like the old emotional stress. We always think of stress as being the emotional stuff. It could be too much or too little exercise. It could be too much or too little food or it could be infection. So all these things create stress in our bodies, but anything that is stress to the body, the body's now responding to cortisol release. And whether it be from infection or disease, irregular eating patterns, food sensitivities, antibiotics, alcohol, shift work, travel, jet lag or sleep interruption, all of these contribute to stress in the body or levels of cortisol that are dysregulated, which now can lead to your hyperpermeability or leaky gut.

And with cortisol, it's a hormone. If we have too much, it's a problem. If we have too little, it's a problem. It's all about that balance. And those that are working, those shift works if they're, I guess you could say used to the shift work and they've created a rhythm that works for their body and some people do when they do okay with it. I've met people that function better working on night shift, that's just how they are. I think sometimes the challenges is when they keep shifting the shifts. You're working days, you're working nights. Now if you're working days for a period, two to four weeks and then working nights for a period, I think there's an opportunity to have the body work back and forth.

But it's finding that regularity in the irregularity. So if you can flow with that, some people flow with it much better. But if your body takes that as a stressor, then it's going to show up. It's going to show up. But inevitably, we're seeing more instances of IBS in 30% of the population who work shift work, they're going to have IBS. That's what we're seeing.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

I definitely see that in my practice. And I think most people that are in practice would agree with that. That people that are on very fluctuating schedules of night shift, day shift, night shift, we're seeing... It's just really much harder to control their digestive symptoms and also their sleep symptoms and their stress symptoms and all of that. And I was reading this good book, gosh, I can't remember his name now, but Why We Sleep, I'm sure you've heard of this book. This is a recent book that's come out and he talks about the night owls and the morning larks, I think he called them. And 40% of us are morning people and 30% of us are actually night owls and that's just our natural rhythm. So maybe it's those people that just tend to fare better with shift work or night shifts specifically.

But we do have a lot of research with shift work and its effect on immunity and so forth. And just one word about the cortisol is in such sync with melatonin also. So as I often think of cortisol as the daytime hormone and melatonin more the sleep regulator that comes on at dusk, and there is this very fine balance between as cortisol drops, that's the signal for melatonin to rise. And then also as the sun rises, we see the reverse happening. So there is a natural balance between daytime and nighttime. Can you talk more about nighttime symptoms of digestive imbalance that are due to circadian dysrhythmic cycles? Or are there nighttime symptoms? Because I see a lot of people that say they are woken up at night with a lot of gas, with heart racing, and they really tie it to their digestive tract. Have you observed that as well?

Dr. Laura Brown:

I have. And I find different root causes behind some of that. So vitamin D comes into play here too because vitamin D works at the same time cortisol does, it works with the sunshine and then the melatonin side of it. But people waking up at night, the heart racing, often food sensitivities and can be alcohol related, burning off the alcohol. Can also be sugar related to eating that last meal too late. And now the body's busy trying to, it's going well, "Here's the energy you just took in and you're..." Because we eat for energy and it's thinking, "Oh, well let me just give that to you right now." And really we need to put it into storage for releasing it more slowly. But if we're not getting enough fiber in our diet, then sometimes it gets released too quickly. If we have insulin dysregulation, then it's not getting stored and released.

If we have liver issues, our liver is responsible for making or pulling sugar from the storage. And if our liver's not healthy, then it can't pull sugar from the storage. If we've had alcohol, and one thing I learned, and maybe you knew this, but it was new to me when I read it, that alcohol actually impairs the liver. It stops the liver from being able to put that blood sugar... To make the sugar to put out into the bloodstream should the sugar be dropping. So if you're drinking an excess, or usually if you have half a glass of wine with dinner, it's not the end of the world, you usually digest that, it's fine. But if you drink alcohol in a fasted state or if you drink too much alcohol, your liver, it's hands are literally tied for up to 12 hours, it can't give you any more blood sugar. So that's usually where you get the sugar crash craving more food.

And this sometimes happens with people waking up in the middle of the night craving food because their liver can't give them the blood sugar that it needs to keep the blood sugar balanced. And is that making sense?

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Yeah.

Dr. Laura Brown:

So that sometimes is waking people up. So liver issues, food sensitivities. I've had people, we do the elimination diet or we do some food intolerance tests and when we get the foods that are bothering them out of the diet, now the gas, the pain, the bloating, things like that aren't happening. And it was interesting with a couple of patients how it would be at the exact same time of day that the symptoms would come up or same time at night. And then it was getting these things out of the diet, then things seem to improve much better. So balancing that microbiome, not putting things in there that are irritating.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

And histamine. I mean, I see very often a histamine problem, but I guess what I was wondering is if the microbiome is so susceptible to circadian rhythms, are there, just like we said, there's a liver time, is there also a microbiome time? Or is that just in the background of what else is going on? If we have an intestinal clock, how do we know that our intestinal clock is disrupted? Or is that just part of the bigger circadian rhythm?

Dr. Laura Brown:

That's a really, really good question. I don't think we specifically have that answer. And the microbiome is starting to be considered an organ of its own. We have the hours of the day for the spleen, the stomach, the liver, the large intestine, the small intestine. But all of these are part of digestion. They're all part of digestive processes. So looking at that Chinese medicine calendar, we may be able to discern, oh, well maybe something's up in the small intestine, maybe it's more small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. If we're getting something, I got my little calendar here, I'm going to have to have a peak, make sure I get it right. So small intestine 11 to one or one to three. So one to 3:00 PM which would mean maybe it's off if maybe it's the liver and the small intestine between one and 3:00 AM if something's up.

So it's something to pay attention to. And then I know there's some homeopathic clocks as well. I've got a really great resource that I don't know if you use homeopathics in your practice.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

I do.

Dr. Laura Brown:

But I've got this great resource and they've said, okay, if you have issues between 12 and one or one and two, these remedies are helpful. And I've experimented with that and just said, well, let's just try this during that time. And sometimes it's really helpful for the individual. So sometimes there's a specific vibration, which would be a homeopathic that would help just reset what's going on. So it's something to take into mind. I don't think we have some firm things, but as naturopathic doctors, we can look at that Chinese medicine calendar, we can look at the homeopathic clocks, and obviously it's individualized medicines who are like, okay, what's going on? What could it be? So pulling the loose strings and just seeing what unravels from that.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

And just for the listener, if your symptoms are not during that time, doesn't mean you don't have SIBO or that you don't have different things. It's just that we're talking about this very specific timed event of circadian rhythms, but we have lots of different influences on our digestion. But I just wondered if there are specific symptoms or times that really indicate that this is because of sleep deprivation or this is because the circadian clock is all messed up. What are some of the key symptoms that we couldn't expect as practitioners?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Well, I think we look at a healthy biorhythm. I think that is a good place to start. What does this person's biorhythm look like? And then as we're doing our intake, I'm typically asking, okay, what time do you go to bed at night? Okay, how long does it take you to fall asleep? How many times waking up through the night? What's waking you up through the night? And going through that whole sleep hygiene to figure out, because that's multi-pronged. And then are we rising naturally or to an alarm when we're rising? Are we rising rested? Do we feel fully rested when we rise? What time are we going to the bathroom? Are we urinating through the night? If so, how many times? What time are our bowels moving? Are they moving regularly each morning, once a day, easy to pass? Or is it three times a day?

Is it multiple times? Is it right after we eat? So that bowel regularity is something else to watch for. And this can give us clues to health of the gallbladder, health of the large intestine, food sensitivities, things like that that can help us. Hydration status. There's so many different parts of it. And then what time are we eating? How long are we fasting? Because that digestive break is so critical for our immune function and for things to happen or rest is not inactive. I always say sleep is such an active state. So finding out and then what time are they going to work? What time are they coming home? Just finding out what their natural rhythms are, what time are they exercising? And then is there some synchronicity to it? Is it flowing? Is there a flow to it or is it different every day?

And if it's different all the time, then obviously something's out of order. And we could do testing, like cortisol testing. We can do the salivary cortisol testing, dried urine cortisol testing, and compare those and see what our cortisol awakening response is? Our initial drive in the morning, does it fall down a little bit? And then do we get a little peak mid-afternoon? And then does it fall a little bit more? How's our melatonin? Where's that at? So we can look at different levels of hormones and just see how the rise and fall of things are. And where our vitamin D status is at because that's critically important too to the biorhythm. So many things that play into it. There's not just a few little items.

We're also looking for fiber in diet and things like that. So we can get these in the balance of the microbiome so we can see what's happening. But it's really looking at that flow in the daily rhythm for the individual. And that brings it back to the shift work and stuff, even if they're on shift work, do they have a rhythm that is similar day to day? And is there biological functions happening around a 24 clock regularly?

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

As you were talking, I was thinking about this latest trend of intermittent fasting or timed eating where people are eating between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM or so just to regulate their weight and their... I mean for various reasons. What influence does that have? Or what do you think about how that will influence our circadian rhythms and our intestinal clocks?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Often it helps reset. If you have issues, often having a fasting state at least 12 hours will help start to reset things. But if you extend it, and I mean fasting's not right for everybody, but, and there's no one right way to fast. There's so many different ways to fast. Key thing is to always be hydrated while you're fasting. And if you're pregnant you're not going to fast. If you have type diabetes, you're going to be monitored. You don't want to do that without being monitored. But as far as the other, it resets so many things. It helps with cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance. It helps with immunity, it helps with, oh, I've got my whole list here. It helps with the digestive tract rhythm. So yes, it does that. Stabilizes body weight, reduces fat, lowers blood pressure, lowers blood glucose, lowers cholesterol and triglycerides.

It does so much for us when we fast. So it's critically important that we do have a fasting state, and typically that's overnight, seven to seven for most is time for fast. But you could extend it if things are out of balance and you would extend it until things come back into balance. Sometimes that digestive rest is necessary for the body to do the other functions. Because you have to think, when we eat, that's a huge manufacturing process. And it takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of motility, it takes a lot of digestive enzymes and things going on, and then we have to digest it all. We have to go through, break it down, absorb it. Things that we didn't do that in the small intestine, go down a little further and now we're fermenting it. Great. This very involves a lot.

And then we have to eliminate whether it's through urine or through stool. So there's a lot. So when we're not eating, it's giving what happens in that digestive tract, a chance to do all of those immune functions. Over 70% of our immune system's in our gut. So yeah, this is important. So fasting really does help. Whether it's the trendy stuff or just like the old-fashioned, don't eat after dinner and don't eat till breakfast the next morning.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

We're big fans of fasting, naturopathic doctors. And in my practice, when I see very severe IBD for example, or any kind of acute flareup, a water fast for 24 hours or so can often be very helpful. But obviously that caveat, if you're very underweight or if you have issues, you want to be under the care of ideally a naturopathic physician or functional medical doctor just to monitor your health and wellbeing during that process. But it is a really helpful thing to do some timed eating or fasting. So I agree with that. There is just some potential fad stuff of the time of eating, of when that time should occur. And I just wondered if you knew if that was related to the circadian rhythms and what happens with digestion and what happens to maximize when food arrives.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's individual. I think that depends on the current state of the individual, what might work best for them. As you just mentioned those with IBD, I think of those with insulin resistance. Fasting in a healthy diet can often reverse type two diabetes. What that fasting state looks like will be based on what's going on, what the person's able to do, willing to do that type of thing.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Well, this is really interesting and I always love getting the conversation back to specifically the microbiome. So are we at that point in research where we know what vila or groups of bacteria are most affected by imbalanced circadian rhythms?

Dr. Laura Brown:

I don't think we have that level of detail. We do know there's no one perfect microbiome, so we don't even know what the perfect microbiome looks like. We know what generally the six or seven families of bacteria that comprise in healthy individuals or individuals without a lot of health issues, so to speak, what that looks like. We've identified things that probably shouldn't be in there. We have identified things that can be in there if in small numbers, but if they get too many of them, then they start to cause issues. And it really comes down to what are these bacteria making? Are they making toxins? Lipopolysaccharides. Because a little bit of lipopolysaccharide is really helpful to stimulate REM sleep or deep sleep. But if you get too much of lipopolysaccharides, now that's a toxin. And now that has potential, if you have irritated your gut lining and that's getting out into your bloodstream, that's going to cause inflammation and all sorts of diseases.

Autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, joint pain, headaches, you name it. We also know that, so the lipopolysaccharides, but then that's usually your gram-negative bacteria. But then we have those healthy families, and I mentioned before, as they're fermenting the fiber in our diet, they make short chain fatty acids, they make some tryptophan metabolite type things, and then they'll make secondary bile acids. And the short chain fatty acids and the secondary bile acids, some people are terming them as postbiotics. So these postbiotics, the balance of those things, because there's different types, the balance of those are critical to helping turn different genes on and off in our gastrointestinal tract that helps with our rhythms it helps with things happening. And they've linked this to depression. They've linked this to anxiety, these imbalances. So we do see that and we see in the gut microbiome comprehensive stool analysis that we're doing some types of bacteria, even the healthy ones, if we have too much of this one, not enough of the other one, too much of this is seen in inflammatory bowel disease.

So if you see a lot of that across the trends in somebody's gut going, oh, well, it's leaning more towards an inflammatory bowel disease. Let's reel this in and helping reset. And we know so much affects the microbiome, our food, our meal timing, what we eat, how we grew up, whether we were breastfed or not. There's so much that goes on the plastics in our diet, the food packaging. The toxins from pesticides, insecticides, off gas and chemicals, lotions and potions we put on our body and cleaner our house with all of these things affect our microbiome. Drugs we take even specific drugs, not just antibiotics, but drugs that act like antibiotics. These things affect our microbiome. And even just taking five or more drugs is going to shift because the microbiome will shift in order to help eliminate and break down those drugs. So there's so much, so much and so many things happening. So we don't have, as you can tell, it was a long answer to your question, but it's a moving target.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

It's definitely an evolving field. I agree. And I have been really fascinated with, I don't really like the term postbiotic, but it is the term postbiotics, but metabolites. And besides short chain fatty acids and the IPA that you mentioned, all the tryptophan metabolite, we also have neurotransmitters. Certain neurotransmitters that can be affected and produced. And we have things like ammonia, and we have things like histamine and hydrogen sulfide production, and all these different substances that we're just beginning to, well, maybe not beginning, but we're in the process of really understanding that. But you mentioned specifically short chain fatty acids, of which there are three that we typically get reported on, which is the acetate and the propionated and the butyrate. Have you seen anything that's specific to any of those that when you talk about turning genes on or off, is there anything specific to any of those metabolites or short chain fatty acids that are as part of this conversation of the circadian rhythms?

Dr. Laura Brown:

I'm just trying to think if anything's tying back to affecting that.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Because it's typically butyrate. Butyrate is usually the one that gets most of the limelight because of its effect on motility and inflammatory mitigation and things like that. But I hadn't heard of this turning on genes that relate to the intestinal clock.

Dr. Laura Brown:

And it's turning on genes for different purposes in what's going on and sending those messages up to the brain. And I'm just trying to think is what keeps popping in my mind is valerate, which is one of the short-chain fatty acids and imbalance in that linked to Alzheimer's disease. But there's finding so many different things linked to Alzheimer's disease. Then we're looking at... I can't think of anything right now that specifically is turning on a gene, that's changing something in the circadian rhythm. But you're right, there's so many other things that the gut microbiome is making. It's making some vitamins, it's helping us absorb stuff. It's making neurotransmitters, which is gaba, serotonin, that type of thing. And we know the gut itself makes 400 times more melatonin than the brain. 90% of our serotonin's made in our gut. So you have to think if the gut's off these types of things will affect.

Now the melatonin made in our brain and our penial gland is that dark light, responsive. The melatonin in our gut is not dark, light, responsive at all. And I think we make so much of it there because it's used to help the gut cells heal and turn turnover because we're turning over those gut cells every three to five days, which is high turnover. So it needs something to help keep things in check. And I think the melatonin's used a lot there for that is my sense from what I'm reading.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

And I think it's also to some extent involved in motility of certain organs, of certain aspects of organs like bile flow in the gallbladder and those kinds of really obscure things. I remember SSL talking about that in one of his lectures about the gallbladder, that melatonin is really important for that. As well as the lower esophageal sphincter and motility in the stomach. So melatonin turns out to be like this little powerhouse of a nutrient that we're making. So I hadn't really heard that about the microbiome making a magnitude of, I don't know how much of more, but way more than the brain. So that's new information. That's great.

Now, can we talk about what can people do? They're identifying with this. They're saying, "Okay, I may have a circadian imbalance. I don't sleep well at night. It may not be jet lag, it may not be shift work, but I'm just not getting... I get very disrupted sleep and then I'm drowsy during the day." And that does affect, as we've just learned, the different aspects of digestion as well. And sometimes people think it's the digestion that comes first and then the sleep second, but sometimes it's the other way around. So I just wondered, what are your go-to recommendations to reset an internal clock?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Well, fasting is important. Getting a good night's sleep and going through the sleep hygiene is important. And then having regular rhythms of things getting up at the same time every day, going to bed at the same time every day, exercising at the same time every day, eating at the same time every day, and just doing those very simple things day in and day out. And it is very boring to our brain for the most part, but it's very helpful for the body. Because now it doesn't have to think, and you have to visualize what you do for a child. Isn't this what mothers do often with their children to keep them in a happy state? In a calm state is to have their regular routines and rhythms, and the child will naturally establish it. But you have to encourage it as well.

But you get these routines going, and then things are so much simpler for them. So much simpler because the body just anticipates what needs to happen. So you got to set things up for success and have some established routines in place so that things are common for the eating, sleeping, exercise [inaudible 00:40:45].

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Elimination. I often tell people, just go to the bathroom anyways, sit on the toilet, just to establish a routine, just even if nothing is moving, it's important to set aside time for that. Just to sit on the toilet, and maybe something will happen, but maybe just by giving the body some time. The other thing I would add to your list is exposure to sunlight, and to make a specific point of that to sit in the sun for maybe even five minutes in the morning so that we actually get some exposure to UV radiation that has some beneficial effect for resetting our clocks as well.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, that's a really, really good one. That early morning exposure to natural light, or even if you don't have natural light to have the 10,000 lux lamps, those are super helpful to have just that exposure.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Can you talk more about those? Because we live in Australia, we get basically, it feels like sometimes 24 hours of sun. We get a lot of sun here. So we don't have a problem with sun exposure. But in people that are listening that maybe live in Northern Europe or live in Canada, live maybe north of the Arctic Circle, what are you guys doing up there?

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, yeah, especially. Yep. Because, I mean, I'm in Canada, so I'm sitting in the Toronto region. I'm outside of Toronto but... So in that area, but I think of my friends in Iceland or Scotland or places like that, you talking about your heritage, Germany, our winters, like November, October, November, until this time of year, it's pretty dark. We're not getting that many hours of daylight that the sun might be coming up at eight o'clock in the morning for me, and by four o'clock it's already gone down. And this makes for difficulty sometimes regulating your rhythms. So I usually suggest they call them happy lights. But it's a 10,000 lux light, full spectrum light daylight that you don't stare into it. You just put it to the side while you're having a cup of tea, or put it to the side while you're working on the computer.

15, 20 minutes, you could do that. You could do it again at noon, sometimes you go find it helpful. But that exposure helps the natural rhythms of the cortisol, the melatonin balance that circadian rhythm to regulate. So now this helps us know when night is and know when day is, so we don't get... Because that itself can start disrupting us and disrupting... You just always feel like you're in a gray fog, you're kind of asleep through the day, kind of asleep, or kind of awake through the night. And there's just no contrast, you need the contrast. We need day, we need night, is that yin-yang. We need the contrast.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Well, thank you, Dr. Brown. This has been really interesting. Before we wrap things up A, where could people find you? And B, any last minute nuggets in terms of our topic today?

Dr. Laura Brown:

I mean, there's always nuggets, there's always things that I'm like, oh please, I wish I put that in there. I talk a lot about this, I have a whole chapter in my book Beyond Digestion. That's available on Amazon worldwide. So easy to pick up. It's an easy to read book, it's easy to digest, so to speak. People tell me. But I do have a whole chapter on circadian rhythms and just how things in the body works on waves. So that's something that might be helpful if people are interested in learning more. My website is, I think you're going to put the link there, it's something.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Yeah, in the show notes.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Yeah, it'll be in the show notes. Southendguelph, that's spelled funny .ca, so that's there. I do lots of blogging, so there's information there. And if you send me a link to the podcast, usually I do a little blog and then put a link to the podcast there so that people can see it from there. So I've done other podcasts around the world with people mostly on gut health because I'm pretty passionate about it. But yeah, if you take care of your gut, really, it'll take care of you. It is so critical and just such a heavy hitter when it comes to good health.

Dr Nirala Jacobi:

Couldn't agree more. Thanks so much for your time, Laura. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Laura Brown:

Thank you so much, Nirala, really appreciate connecting. It's been a pleasure.