Starved to Sleep

Photo by christinepilote

Can you starve to death sleep?

We have highlighted national sleep week, showed you how to cheat on sleep and even provided outrageous photos of a sleep realted incident but today’s post tops them all. Apparently our bodies have two internal clocks, one based on light and the other based on food. Lifehacker tells us:

Normally, the body’s natural circadian clock in the brain dictates when to wake, eat and sleep, all in response to light. But it seems a second clock takes over when food is scarce, and manipulating this clock might help travelers adjust to new time zones.

Granted, fasting is certainly extreme for just a few hours worth of jet lag, but the article points out that an 11-hour time change—like one an American traveler might experience when flying to Japan—would take the average person an entire week to adjust to. In such cases, a fast-before-you-fly policy could do wonders. The article is iffy about the effectiveness of this method, so if you’ve ever tried it, let’s hear how it worked in the comments.

If this interests you be sure visit NPR’s Science Friday post on the subject (audio file in upper left corner).