Drive more social media traffic with Buffer for Business Schedule My First Post

Buffer Social Open Overflow Happiness

Search
is hiring!

social Save time on social media with

Buffer. Schedule your first post now!
Thoughts on social media and online marketing.

Why Most Olympic Records Are

Broken in the Afternoon: Your Body’s
Best Time For Everything

By Belle Beth Cooper

21 Comments
LIFE HACKING - JULY 18, 2013

One thing that we’re obsessed

with here at Buffer is obviously
the best times to share on
Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn.

It just so happens that with

social networks, the timing of
when your posts go out plays a
vital role in your success. Since
we’ve got our heads in this all
day, every day, I wondered if
timing plays a big role in other things we do every day.
3.2k
Shares
149 1.9k 80
So I looked into how our body responds to timing and how we can
utilize that knowledge. It turns out that we actually have a very
sophisticated internal body clock that governs almost everything
we do, without us even realizing it. Read on to find out your body’s
best time for everything.

How the body clock works

Our body clock is a small group of cells made up of unique ‘body clock’
genes. These cells turn on and off and tell other parts of the body
what time it is and what to do. In fact, most of our individual organs
have their own internal body clock cells as well.

Here is a short animation that shows your internal body clock tells cells
to turn on and off:

So let’s take a look at how the internal body clock affects everything we
do, and what the best time is for our body to engage in different daily
activities.

The BBC also did a fantastic video of which the above is an excerpt of
explaining more about how our cells work and the secret of our
bodyclock.

Eating – Which meal at what time?

Eating – Which meal at what time?
By far one of the trickiest topics to tackle is the optimal timing for
eating. A quick search on Google reveals that there are as many viable
diets as there are people. And yet, there are some great, general
guidelines that we can follow.

A recent study in Cell Metabolism tried to find out, given all things
equal, if timing actually makes a difference. 2 groups of mice were put
onto the exact same diet in terms of caloric intake. The only difference
was that the first group had access to the food all day round, whilst the
second group only for 8 hours during peak activity.

The result according to the researchers was stunning:

The mice that ate only while active were 40% leaner and had lower
cholesterol and blood sugar.

So, limiting your food intake to your 8 most active hours during the
day could be a good idea. We can also dig a bit deeper into the optimal
time for eating dinner in particular:

When you should eat dinner

When it comes to dinner, eating late generally conflicts with our
internal body clock because it’s starting to wind down and get
ready for sleep. If we’re simply not set up to process the food we’re
taking in, it’s probably not the best time for a big meal.

Nutritionist Linda Morgan from the University of Surrey wanted to see

how efficient we are at processing food at night compared to in the
morning. She conducted an experiment where participants were given
the exact same foods at night and in the morning. Then she tested their
blood glucose levels to see how much glucose their bodies were hanging
onto.
Morgan says blood glucose levels indicate how efficiently your body is
processing and storing glucose, and high levels of glucose in the blood
after a meal can point out future risks like diabetes. Her experiment
found that blood glucose levels after an evening meal were much higher
than when the exact same meal was eaten earlier in the day.

Morgan says this means we should try to get most of our calories
earlier in the day, and have lighter, earlier evening meals when
possible.

Sleeping – How long and at what time?

While some of us identify as night owls or morning larks, most of us
actually have a fairly regular time when sleep benefits us most.
Professor Jim Horne from Loughborough University says that we’re
naturally designed to have two sleeps a day: a long one at night and
another one in the early afternoon. Early afternoon is when our
energy naturally dips lower than usual and we have a harder time
focusing.

In fact, according to an article in The New York Times, lots of cultures

around the world break up their sleeping patterns:

The idea that we should sleep in eight-hour chunks is relatively

recent. The world’s population sleeps in various and surprising ways.
Millions of Chinese workers continue to put their heads on their desks
for a nap of an hour or so after lunch, for example, and daytime
napping is common from India to Spain.**
We tend to be susceptible to micro sleeps around this time—that is,
tiny moments where we nod off before shaking ourselves awake. This is
our internal body clock saying it’s a good time to go to sleep, so if
you’re planning a nap—slot it into this part of your day!

Although everyone is different to some degree, we actually all start

out as morning people, and continue this way until around age 10.

From ages 10–20 we start to sleep and wake up later and later until
around 20 years old, when the pattern starts to reverse again and we
start waking up earlier. Eventually, around age 55, we are going to
sleep and waking up at roughly the same times we did when we
were 10 years old.

So, age has a huge bearing on how our body clocks operate and what our
optimal sleep times are. You’re probably familiar with how teenagers
prefer to sleep in late and go to bed late, but it turns out it’s not just
teenage laziness (although it is “just a phase,” since these tendencies
lessen as we get older).
Teenagers are biologically predisposed to sleep and wake later than
anyone else. This means they’re often struggling with important
cognitive work at school during their least optimal times. A study of
school students’ memory function in the UK actually showed that
students performed 9% better on the same type of memory tests in
the afternoon as they did in the morning.

Another myth, similar to teenagers’ laziness when going to sleep is the

fact that we need 8 hours of sleep each night. Daniel Krypke famously
eliminated that myth recently with a study showing that, we don’t in
fact need that amount of sleep to reach our body’s best performance.

Exercising
When choosing a time of day to exercise, paying attention to your body
clock can improve results, as well as overall happiness through
exercising. A general rule: later is better.

For runners, cyclists and other endurance athletes, the morning is

the worst performance time. Professor Greg Atkinson from Liverpool
John Moores University says, “Almost every world record in track-and-
field athletics and cycling events has been broken in the afternoon or
evening.”

This could be a result of our body temperature being at its peak later in
the day, giving us a natural ‘pre-game warmup’ in a sense. Our
receptiveness to pain is also lower in the afternoon, meaning we can
push further in endurance sports.

Blood pressure is also a factor in our exercise routines. In the first three
hours after we wake up, our blood pressure rises the most out of any
point in the day. Our blood vessels open up more to allow for blood flow
later in the day, our blood is not as sticky then and we have a natural
drop in blood pressure in the afternoon.

Exercising in the morning was found in an experiment to either

increase blood pressure or not make a difference at all. In the evening,
however, exercise was found to reduce blood pressure by 10–11%.

Physical performance is higher, and risk of injury is lower, between 3

p.m. and 6 p.m., according to Michael Smolensky, who wrote (with
Lynne Lamberg) “The Body Clock Guide to Better Health.”

Additionally, our lungs function 17.6% more efficiently at 5 p.m. than at

midday, according to a study of 4,756 patients led by Boris Medarov, an
assistant professor of medicine at Albany Medical College in New York.

Afternoon exercise can even help us sleep better:

The National Sleep Foundation reports that exercise in the afternoon

can help deepen shut-eye and cut the time it takes for you to fall into
dreamland. But, they caution, vigorous exercise leading up to
bedtime can actually have the reverse effects.

For other athletes, however, the morning could be the optimal

performance time. Balance, for instance, is higher in the morning, so
gymnasts might perform better then.

Working
The funny thing I found out about our best time for working is that in
some ways, everything I thought I knew about being productive was
wrong. It turns out that circadian rhythms really affect how we work
as well, so we all have peaks and troughs in our physical and mental
capacity to get work done.

The interesting part of this is that the type of work we’re doing makes a
difference to which time of the day we should choose to do it in. Here’s
how it breaks down:

If you’re a morning lark, say, you’ll want to favor those morning hours
when you’re feeling more fresh to get your most demanding, analytic
work done. Using your brain to solve problems, answer questions and
make decisions is best done when you’re at your peak, according to
Scientific American:

Numerous studies have demonstrated that our best performance on

challenging, attention-demanding tasks—like studying in the midst
of distraction—occurs at our peak time of day. When we operate at
our optimal time of day, we filter out the distractions in our world
and get down to business.

For night owls, this is obviously a much later period in the day.

On the other hand, if you’re trying to do creative work, you’ll actually

have more luck when you’re more tired and your brain isn’t
functioning as efficiently. This sounds crazy, but it actually makes
sense when you look at the reasoning behind it. It’s one of the reasons
why great ideas often happen in the shower after a long day of work.

If you’re tired, your brain is not as good at filtering out distractions and
focusing on a particular task. It’s also a lot less efficient at
remembering connections between ideas or concepts. These are both
good things when it comes to creative work, since this kind of work
requires us to make new connections, be open to new ideas and
think in new ways. So a tired, fuzzy brain is much more use to us when
working on creative projects.

This Scientific American article explains how distractions can actually

be a good thing for creative thinking:

Insight problems involve thinking outside the box. This is where

susceptibility to “distraction” can be of benefit. At off-peak times we
are less focused, and may consider a broader range of information.
This wider scope gives us access to more alternatives and diverse
interpretations, thus fostering innovation and insight.

How light affects our body clocks

Light is the single biggest external factor that affects our internal
body clocks.

Each of us has a slightly different internal time, which can range from a
22 hour cycle (a fast body clock, associated with morning larks) to a 25
hour cycle (a slow body clock, which night owls would have). The
average is around 24.5 hours.

Sunlight helps us to adjust this internal time cycle each day to

synchronize it with the world’s 24-hour cycle. It works like this: light
hits the back of our eyes and travels into our brains, triggering the
release of chemicals onto our body clock cells. This tweaks our internal
time to be either slower or faster, making it exactly 24 hours.

This also means that the more sunlight your eyes receive during the day
can affect your clock by slowing it down or speeding it up when you
don’t want it to. If you get lots of light in the morning, this will speed
up your body clock and help you wake up earlier. Getting lots of light in
the afternoon and around sunset will do the opposite—slow down your
body clock and help you stay up later into the night.

This is probably the best trick I know for helping your body to adjust to
a new timezone after flying halfway around the world, so it’s great to
understand how it really affects our bodies!

Our dependence on light to keep our body clocks synchronized with the
day’s 24 hour period is affected by our age, just like our sleep patterns
are. As we get older, two main things happen that relate to this:

Our eyesight worsens, and we receive less light into our eyes

Our body clock becomes less active

Both of these things make our body clocks run slightly out of sync with
the world. We start waking up a lot during the night, and often waking
up far earlier than we’d like to. This is because the lack of light coming
into our brains through our eyes gives a much weaker signal to our body
clock cells to adjust them to a 24-hour period.

And although we don’t lose any of our body clock cells, much fewer of
them are actually active as we get older.

What’s also important to consider here is that the importance of

lighting in your office or at home is tightly connected to the
temperature in your workplace too. Make sure that both are aligned to
get an even better focus on your activities.

There’s still hope, though. An experiment that tripled the amount of

light dementia and alzheimer’s patients received during the day saw
improvements in mood, better sleeping patterns, improved cognitive
functions like memory and slower deteriorate of physical functions.

Some other cool facts

There are some other areas that are affected by our body clocks that I
found interesting. Here are some of my favorite facts that I found out,
mostly from the BBC video mentioned at the top of this post (it’s pretty
amazing—I’d recommend watching the whole thing if you have time).

The best time to drink

In the late afternoon/early evening our body clock is at its peak, so

alcohol will have a lower effect on our cognitive ability. Lucky for us,
this is right about the time for post-work drinks, so we can enjoy
alcohol without it knocking us about like it would in the morning, or
making us sleepy like it would at lunch.

The best time for medication

Administering medications like chemotherapy which can kill healthy as

well as diseased cells can be hugely affected by our body clocks. This
recent study showed that if fewer of our healthy cells are active when
the medication is administered, it will hurt less of them and be able to
target the diseased cells better.

The best time to have a baby

Actually, this distinction is becoming less obvious as more and more

births are affected by medical intervention, but the extremely relaxed
state of our brains and muscles at this time and our lowered pain
sensations mean not only is this a popular time for natural births to
occur, but probably the best time you could choose as well.

Image credits: eflon, Brain Pickings, Wikipedia, Paul Manley, Daily

Galaxy

Tweet

1928

365

Like

304

547
Share

Want to save an hour a day on your social media management? Buffer

can help! Start a free 30-day trial of Buffer for Business.
 Written by Belle Beth Cooper

Belle is the first Content Crafter at Buffer and co-founder of Exist. She
writes about social media, startups, lifehacking and science.

Follow @bellebcooper 13.2K followers

Comments for this thread are now closed. ×

21 Comments Updates and tips from Buffer 

1 Login

 Recommend 3 ⤤ Share Sort by Best

Kuratur
− ⚑
3 years ago
Just love what you guys are doing with the blog content. Every single post is a
keeper and a sharer!

I just read about the eating only from, like, 11am to 6pm on Mercola's blog. Have
been practicing it for about 3 weeks and think it's effective...

Keep up the great work. I love sharing your stuff!

12 △ ▽

Alex > Kuratur

− ⚑
3 years ago
I am with you, since I subscribed to this blog, Every post is worth reading.
Regards!
1△ ▽

Belle > Alex

− ⚑
3 years ago
Thanks so much! Glad you're enjoying it :)
1△ ▽

A Wanderer
− ⚑
2 years ago
I have NEVER been a morning person. Even as a three-year-old, my mom had
trouble waking me up for pre-school. I personally have always felt best after the
sun goes down. My grandmother is 86, and she tends to be up until well past
midnight, so I suspect it runs in my family.
4△ ▽
 △ ▽

Armistead Legge
− ⚑
3 years ago
You guys easily have the best productivity and social blog I've ever seen -- keep
up the awesome work Belle, and the rest of the team.

One comment:

There's still a good deal of controversy over when it's best to eat, and how to
distribute calories throughout the day. In the study referenced in the article, the
subjects were obese and overweight, and not exercising, so we don't know how
these results might generalize to others in a different context.

Most studies have also shown that meal frequency has no impact on weight loss
or body composition:

Bellisle F, McDevitt R, Prentice AM. Meal frequency and energy balance. Br J

Nutr. 1997;77 Suppl 1:S57–70.

Anyway, great work overall,

- Armi
4△ ▽

Roz Barnes > Armistead Legge

− ⚑
2 years ago
I agree. Fantastic content!
0△ ▽

Belle > Armistead Legge

− ⚑
3 years ago
Thanks Armi! I agree, the research can often be conflicting or too specific to
pull general facts from, but getting a vague idea is at least better than not
knowing :)
0△ ▽

Marco Esposito
− ⚑
2 years ago
I didn't get what the best time to focus and study. Can you tell me, please?
3△ ▽

Lakshpri
− ⚑
2 years ago
What a fascinating article! I concur with the other commentators here, this blog
is awesome and every bit worth reading. Keep up the good work.
is awesome and every bit worth reading. Keep up the good work.
2△ ▽

Christopher Babayode
− ⚑
3 years ago
Great content every frequent flier can make use of.
1△ ▽

Brandon Schaefer
− ⚑
3 years ago
Wow, what an article. Well done, I learned a lot. Thanks.
1△ ▽

Michael Clobes
− ⚑
a year ago
I have a question about all this! I was adopted from Santiago Chile and live in
Milwaukee Wisconsin. How might this effect me? I used to be a night owl but
recently changed my lifestyle to a healthier one and have completely done a 180!
I now get up at 5am instead of sleeping in and go to be earlier than I used to.
Don't get me wrong, I can still stay up until 3, 4, 5 in the morning but will then end
up sleeping until noon! Thanks,
0△ ▽

Jan Kowalski
− ⚑
2 years ago
Thank You for the post :). A lot of useful info.
0△ ▽

Toni
− ⚑
2 years ago
So as I was reading this I realized that fragments of this article were plagarized
from The Wall Street Journal's The Peak Time For Everything article. I checked
the posted dates for both. Wow, thats really lame.
0△ ▽

LeoWid > Toni

− ⚑
2 years ago
Hi Toni, thanks so much for stopping by here! You're absolutely right, we used
a lot of inspiration for this article from that Wall Street Journal article (which
was amazing!). We tried to link to it from here too. We also tried to vastly
expand on what was mentioned in the WSJ article, and add a lot of additional
research and ideas. I definitely think that we could have chosen a better title
though! Would love your thoughts on what might work best to highlight things
 better here! :)
2△ ▽

Viviana Manganaro Aquarela

− ⚑
2 years ago
Thumbs up, very interesting, thank you! Content managing at its best!
0△ ▽

Adam Kitchen
− ⚑
3 years ago
Awesome article. I'm going to use some of the information for my readers, too.

Just curious as to whether you have the reference links to all the studies you
mentioned?
0△ ▽

Belle > Adam Kitchen

− ⚑
3 years ago
Glad to hear it, Adam, thanks! Any of the studies mentioned that aren't linked
in the article came from the BBC Horizon video that I linked to.
0△ ▽

Rob E
− ⚑
3 years ago
Incredible article! I came across this on twitter and I will be sharing it with
everyone today. And your service looks interesting too... I may have to give
buffer a shot!
0△ ▽

Belle > Rob E

− ⚑
3 years ago
Glad to hear it, Rob! :)
0△ ▽

Load more comments

ALSO ON UPDATES AND TIPS FROM BUFFER

Snapchat is Growing Up: Everything Behind-the-Scenes: How This

You Need to Know About Agency Saves 40 Hours Per Month
Snapchat’s
14 comments • Latest …
a month ago With
4 Its Social
comments Media
• a month ago …
14 comments • a month ago
Nathaniel Rivera — Curious to know
how the direct chat feature works.
Sometimes you can swipe up to
chat on a specific chat, and …
Our Favorite Facebook Tool + 16
Amazing Pages That We Draw
Inspiration
11 comments • From
a month…ago
Brian Peters — Hey there, Gen Fuller
& Lauren C.! Great question (and
awesome recommendations on
Buzzfeed & Tasty)! …
✉ Subscribe d Add Disqus to your site Add Disqus Add
4 comments • a month ago
Jill — Thanks for your article. I have
a question about UTM links in
Facebook. When I put the UTM link
in Facebook, Facebook …
15 Surefire Ways to Boost Your
Social Media Marketing in Under an
Hour
6 comments • 7 days ago
Jacob Longacre — Another great
article, thanks!
ὑ Privacy
Actionable social media advice. Delivered daily.
Join 42,023 good-looking folks who get our latest content first :)

Don’t worry, you can unsubscribe

Email Address anytime.

More social media results in less time: It's possible with Buffer! Share
content from anywhere online, manage multiple accounts, collaborate
with team members, and see which posts perform best.

Try it free for 30 days

Learn More

Buffer for Business The Awesome Plan Email Us FAQ About Blog Buffer
Culture Jobs More...