Some people like a daily routine. Others find a regular routine to be a bit mundane. However, new research says that regular daily habits can have benefits for our health. Researchers say a regular routine may be able to reduce physical pain and ease symptoms of depression. We explore the connection in today’s blog.
Daily Habits And Our Health
According to researchers at the University of Missouri, having some regular daily habits may help improve a person’s overall quality of life. To get a better understanding of how a daily routine or regular habits affected a person’s health, researchers looked at health data from 67 older adults, including 37 people with insomnia. Not surprisingly, they found that participants with insomnia reported higher levels of pain and depression.
That said, when breaking it down by individuals who maintained consistent daily routines, researchers found that these individuals tended to report lower levels of pain and depression. Researchers believe this connection is due in part to how regular schedules can help to synchronize the body’s internal clock.
“Regardless of sleep quality, those who reported having a regular daily routine had lower levels of physical pain and less depression compared to those without a daily routine,” said Eunjin Tracy, an assistant professor in the University of Missouri’s College of Education and Human Development. “If we are consistent with when we wake up, eat, work or study, interact with others and go to bed, those time cues help synchronize our internal body clocks. Over the long term, that seems to be linked with improved health outcomes.”
Researchers say regular habits, like waking up, eating, working out and going to bed around the same time each day helps regulate our body’s 24-hour clock, which itself can impact our sleep quality, mood and other biological functions.
“When we regulate our circadian rhythm well, our bodies function well, but if it gets too distracted, our bodies don’t function as well,” Tracy said.
Now, that’s not saying that you need to do the exact same things every single day in order to ward off depression or pain, but there may be some benefit to trying to normalize your circadian rhythm and 24-hour internal clock. If you’re constantly staying up late, napping at odd times or going to bed at 9:00 pm on weeknights and 1:00 a.m. on weekends, your body may struggle to adapt to these inconsistencies in your daily schedule, in turn affecting other areas of your life. Try to normalize some daily habits, like when you wake up, when you eat and when you go to bed in order to help your body find the benefits of a more consistent circadian rhythm.
For more information on the benefits of sleep, check out some of the other blogs Dr. Silverman has written on the subject!