If you’ve ever traveled between different time zones, you’ve surely experienced how badly jet lag can throw your biological clock out of whack. On the other hand, if you are usually tired whenever your alarm goes off every morning, studies show that you might be putting your body through that same kind of stress every day.

Social Jetlag – Mismatch between our daily schedules and the unique biological clock vs our internal clocks.

This phenomenon is what sleep researchers call it. It is the mismatch between our daily schedules and the unique biological needs of our internal clocks. If the gap between our “biological clock” (the unique schedule when our body needs sleep) and our “social time” (the schedule we follow instead) is greater, then the higher the risk for us on developing a slew of health problems. Two out of 3 thirds of people experience an hour of social jetlag per week based on an estimated research, and a third experience two or more — which is equivalent to flying from West coast to East coast every week.

The core at the public health crisis of sleep loss is being misaligned. A higher rates of obesity, heart disease, and even Alzheimer’s and dementia were linked by lacking of sleep according from decades of research.

Based on the episode of Vox’s Glad You Asked, they have discovered how biological rhythms shape our sleeping schedules, and how our sleep contributes to broader social disparities in health.

Glad You Asked Host

You may watch the video on of Vox’s YouTube channel here. Subscribe also to our Youtube channel here.

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