WHAT IS THE BEST TIME TO WORKOUT?
Most of us are confused about the timings of the workouts. We decide a time based upon our convenience and the availability of resources. But we must look at exercise as a biological tool instead of a matter of convenience.
Our bodies have a certain rhythm of the functioning and availability of energy channels. Although, body can be made ready for the workout at any point of time in the day. You can wake up out of sleep in the midnight and perform a workout. This looks simply fine superficially. Internally the effects are humongous and affect our health in many ways in the long run.
The Circadian Rhythm
The body has a particular rhythm of waking up with the first rays of sunlight and moving towards pack-up mode with the last red rays of the sunset. The circadian rhythm is the human body’s internal, 24-hour master clock that regulates cycles of alertness, sleepiness, and vital biological functions in response to light changes in the environment. Derived from the Latin words circa (around) and diem (a day), this natural rhythm coordinates your physical, mental, and behavioural systems to ensure they perform optimally at different points of the day.
Morning
The light causes release of particular hormones in the blood. Morning sunlight stimulates cortisol which is actually a stress hormone which helps in raising the blood pressure and amount of sugar in the blood. This rise in blood pressure helps to clear bowls and wake up. The sugar in blood helps to move on a hunt or forage or search of food; in modern terms exercise. Performing this morning exercise is not a choice but a compulsion.
In primate days, exercise was performed willingly or unwillingly for food. Now the breakfast becomes available even if you have not spent any calories for attaining it. Our body is designed to make us feel hungry on seeing food. If the morning exercise is not performed, the blood sugar levels remain high and we eat a breakfast on top of that. The breakast without exercise is a deadly recipe to diabetese and fat gain.
Evening
When our body has been fatigued in the day time, sunset initiates release of hormones to help body go into a relaxing mode slowly. The energy channels of the body are slowly going into a state of rest. Body tempratures drop, blood pressure decreases, stress hormone suppresses and melatonin starts releasing.
In such a state, if we workout, our body takes it as an emergency and triggers stress response resulting into release of stress hormone. Throughout the day, your body accumulates adenosine, creating what sleep scientists call “sleep pressure” or baseline fatigue. As daylight begins to fade, your eyes register the drop in light and notify the brain’s master clock—the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). This triggers a coordinated physiological pivot toward recovery. If you engage in high-intensity exercise during this delicate transition, you force an abrupt biological U-turn. Your body does not perceive a late-evening gym session as a voluntary health choice; it interprets the sudden, intense demand for oxygen, fuel, and rapid movement as an immediate survival emergency.The hypothalamus signals the adrenal glands to flood your bloodstream with cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol levels, which should be at their lowest point of the day, can triple or quadruple.
By forcing a stress response at sunset, you plunge your system into a state of nocturnal hyperarousal. Even if you manage to fall asleep due to sheer physical exhaustion, the elevated cortisol flattens your natural hormone curve. Your body spends the first several hours of the night trying to clear out stress hormones and lower its temperature, rather than entering the deep, restorative slow-wave sleep required to repair cellular tissue and restore energy stores. Chronically overriding your sunset cues this way ultimately desynchronizes your peripheral cellular clocks, leading to persistent daytime fatigue, disrupted metabolism, and weakened immunity.
Hence, whether it is convenient or not, a morning workout is what naturally suits human body by evolution. There is no choice to it. An evening workout will harm you more than benefit and induce chronic stress and depression which will ultimately hamper your fitness.
Comment what time you workout……
STAY FIT!! STAY HEALTHY!!
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