If you’re questioning the mental health impacts of intermittent fasting, it’s important to know that IF may have some benefits for your mind, too. In fact, research shows that intermittent fasting can be a powerful mood-booster.

Fasting also triggers an important process called autophagy. Autophagy is like “spring cleaning” for your body: getting rid of old, damaged cells and making room for new, healthy ones so we can keep functioning at peak levels. It’s especially important in the brain, since autophagy helps to helps clear out damaged proteins and promote brain health.

In his book Life Lessons from a Brain Surgeon, Rahul Jandial, M.D., Ph.D. talks about how—and more importantly, why—he’s made intermittent fasting a part of his daily routine. “Intermittent hunger clears the mind, awakens the senses, and improves brain functioning,” he says. “Going without food for even a day increases your brain’s natural growth factors, which support the survival and growth of neurons.” 

Immune support, inflammation reduction, plus a brain and mood boost? You can see why fasting can be such a powerful tool in your well-being arsenal. Just be sure to choose the type of fast that works best for you and your body. 

Namely, those mice showed much higher neuronal activity at night compared to the control group, despite the SCN typically showing less activity at this time. As the team notes in their research, “Neuronal excitability at night could lead to decline or mistiming of sleep-wake, hormonal, and physiological rhythms.”

Then, when those mice were given an endothelin B receptor blocker, all that late-night neural activity slowed down. So not only was the salt affecting their circadian rhythm, but the team adds that endothelin B receptor blockers (which are used to promote healthy blood pressure), could also potentially influence the circadian rhythms of people who take them.

So why does this happen? Two common culprits: breastfeeding and menopause.

People who are lactating and breastfeeding usually don’t have regular periods since the body is trying to suppress ovulation so you don’t get pregnant again. (Disclaimer: You can still get pregnant if you’re breastfeeding in the absence of a period!) The body’s job is to make milk to feed the baby, not get pregnant again quickly.

That’s why most people who have a baby have similar vaginal tissues to a person in menopause: atrophy; dryness; pain; pale color; less lubrication; and thinner, more fragile tissue. In a study of 832 first-time moms, nearly half of the women (46.3%) reported a lack of interest in sexual activity, 43% experienced a lack of vaginal lubrication, and 37.5% of women had dyspareunia (painful sex) six months after birth.

The same goes for menopause. Menopause is the cessation of menstrual cycles, and no more ovulation occurs. Estrogen fuels ovulation, so when estrogen drops and ovulation stops, we have a systemic result. Without estrogen flowing through the body due to menopause, the tissues of the vulva and the vagina are affected. In fact, anywhere from 17 to 45% of postmenopausal women report painful intercourse, and AV appears in approximately 45% of postmenopausal women, according to research on dyspareunia.

Last summer, the AASM confirmed what many of us suspected: The stress and unease of the pandemic were causing sleep disruptions across the country. Its July 2020 survey of 2,007 American adults found that around one-third of people reported COVID-19 was making their sleep quality worse.

To track how sleep patterns have shifted over the past year, the AASM conducted the same survey again this March. The results were counterintuitive: Despite the progress being made against the pandemic, our sleep appeared to be getting worse, not better. In this follow-up survey, 56% of Americans reported sleep issues due to COVID. Men, people ages 35 to 44, and people living in the Northeast were most likely to report “COVID-somnia.”

“A lot of people thought that our sleep should be getting better because we can see the light at the end of the tunnel—but it’s worse now than it was last year,” Fariha Abbasi-Feinberg, M.D., a sleep medicine specialist and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, told the New York Times of these new numbers.

This paradox makes more sense when you consider the triggers of COVID-somnia—many of which are still very much present. For example, millions of people are still working from home and sleeping in later due to the lack of commute, which can throw off sleep rhythms. Looser schedules also mean more variation in bedtime and wake-up time, another potential threat to sleep quality. It’s reasonable to think that those working from home are also still getting outside and moving their body less than they were in pre-pandemic days. And with social calendars beginning to fill up again, consumption of booze—a major sleep disrupter—is on the rise again. Finally, the lingering anxiousness surrounding the pandemic in the U.S. and abroad might be continuing to keep people up at night.