Episode Overview

In this eye-opening episode of the Better Than Before Breast Cancer Podcast, host Laura Lummer dives into the powerful connection between your body’s natural rhythms and the timing of your meals. Have you ever noticed how aligned you feel when you live in sync with nature’s cycles? Drawing from Ayurveda—an ancient system of medicine from India—and contemporary scientific research, Laura reveals how understanding your body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, can significantly enhance your health, especially after breast cancer.

What You’ll Discover in This Episode:

• A gentle introduction to Ayurveda and how this 5,000-year-old wisdom emphasizes living in harmony with Earth's natural cycles.
• Clear, practical explanations of circadian rhythm, metabolism, hormonal balance, and their critical roles in breast cancer recovery.
• How Ayurvedic principles align surprisingly well with modern Western nutritional science.
• The profound health benefits of aligning meal timing with daylight hours, including improved sleep, reduced inflammation, and optimized metabolism.
• Easy strategies to shift your eating patterns gently, starting with simple steps like adjusting dinner times.

Key Studies Referenced:

JAMA Oncology Study:
Catherine R. Marinac, Dorothy D. Sears, Lok-Hei Lam, Shirley W. Flatt, Loki Natarajan, Ruth E. Patterson; "Prolonged Nightly Fasting and Breast Cancer Prognosis."
JAMA Oncology, 2016; Read the full study here.

Cell Metabolism Study:
Emily N.C. Manoogian, Satchidananda Panda et al.; "Time-restricted eating improves cardiometabolic health in overweight individuals."
Cell Metabolism, 2019; Explore the study here.

Listen in to explore:

• How simple shifts in meal timing can powerfully support your body's natural detoxification pathways and hormonal balance.
• The Ayurvedic recommendations for ideal meal times and how they beautifully complement modern scientific guidelines.
• Ways to incorporate a loving, compassionate mindset toward food, meal timing, and your body's natural rhythm.

This episode encourages you to foster a nurturing, compassionate relationship with your body by syncing your daily habits with the earth's rhythms, creating lasting health and harmony after breast cancer.

Connect with Laura: Visit The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach for personalized metabolic health coaching, mindset transformation, and guidance specifically tailored for breast cancer survivors.

Enjoyed the episode? 

Subscribe, leave a review, and share with friends who could benefit from this healing wisdom!

Read the full transcript:

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You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started. Hey friends, welcome to episode 404 of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host. Laura Lummer, I'm thrilled to be here with you today on this beautiful sunny Can I call it spring yet? I mean, yes, in a march, I can call it spring. I love it when the days get longer, I love the sunshine. I think I talk about it maybe too much, but it makes me think about how connected we are to the earth and to the cycles of the earth and the cycles of our body are very in tune with this. You know, I'll share a story with you. In the early 2000s maybe around 2002 or three was the first time that I went to yoga at a yoga studio I had practiced at home for quite some time. And a friend of mine, I don't know why I never went to a studio. I probably was intimidated about the idea, but a friend of mine went to a yoga studio and loved it, and called me and invited me, and I went, and I loved it. I completely fell in love, and I just felt like it really elevated my experience of yoga when I went into that studio. Then I just became a regular there, and I started going to all of the workshops. And there was this one presentation the woman who owned the studio did. She had studied Ayurveda, and she was very into yoga studies. And she did this workshop like a weekend workshop on Ayurveda, which is the east, eastern Indian the traditional system of medicine. There, I went to this workshop on Ayurveda, and I was enthralled. I was fascinated. I absolutely loved it, so much so that when I went home, I enrolled in Ayurveda college, and I graduated from there in 2006

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absolutely loved it, and I learned so much from the study of Ayurveda that I mean, I think that what I did in those couple of years of study was just scratching the surface of this incredibly deep, amazing science that's 5000 years old. So one of the things that I really carried with me, and really took from that, though, was the the cycles and how everything physically in our world, in our bodies, with our food, is just so cyclical, and how becoming aligned with the cycles of the Earth is so beneficial for us. So then, of course, as years go by and science evolves, we see more and more emphasis being put on our circadian rhythm on the value and importance of sleep and proper sleep, which entails aligning ourselves with cycles of light and dark. So think about it. Have you ever felt really deeply connected to the rhythm of nature, to sunrise to sunset, to the changing of the seasons, I know, like when it goes into winter and it gets dark really early, people are always talking about that I just don't feel like going out anywhere. I don't want to do anything. I want to stay home and be cozy and put on a blanket, right? We really are more aligned than we think, and sometimes we try to push ourselves past that, because we think life's supposed to go a certain way. And I shouldn't be this way. I shouldn't be sleepy. I should just push myself. I should just go but should you, you know, does your body actually mirror these natural cycles, and if you become more tuned and mindful of them, would they help you feel better? Ayurveda sees our bodies as intimately tied to the Earth's rhythms, and when we honor this connection and pay attention to when we eat as much as what we eat, we create a more loving, nurturing relationship with ourself, and we enhance our health, especially after breast cancer. And I say especially after breast cancer, because we have to realize that there are so many systems in our body that impact our overall health and immunity and strength, including the way our body detoxifies itself, processes nutrition, response to oxidative stress, right too many toxins, or too much food or the wrong kinds of food. So it's not just what we eat, but when we eat it I'm going to go into here, can really support these detoxification pathways and can help us with better nutrient absorption, absorption and use overall. Ayurveda teaches us that our bodies thrive when we are in harmony with nature cycles. So imagine your circadian rhythm as just this really. Gentle kind of dance between your body and the earth, rising with the sun, winding down with the moon. Scientifically speaking, your circadian rhythm is your body's internal clock helping regulate sleep, digestion, hormones and metabolism, and it's this beautiful process where your body turns food into energy. I mean, I think that's really cool, right? It's really fascinating. We think you put a seed into the ground, into dirt, with water and sun, energy from the sun, and all that energy comes together to produce a food, that food is filled with energy. What is a calorie, but a measurement of energy, and then we transfer that energy into our body, and our body is so incredibly intelligent, it turns it into a type of energy we can use. It's fascinating. In Ayurveda, I'm going to tell you how it works, and I'm going to compare it to some of the current science for circadian rhythm, and you tell me what you think, because these amazing sages have known this for 5000 years. But Ayurveda recommends that you wake up before sunrise. It's called the vata time of the day, from 2am to 6am and it's considered the best time for clarity and spiritual connection. And if you think about it, when you wake up early in the morning and not to rush out of the house, because you have a busy life, but you take that time when it's quiet. I mean, the world is still kind of quiet, right? Hasn't woke up yet. And then lunch, that's when your main meal is recommended to be it's best eaten during this time called the Pitta time of day, from 10am to 2pm which is when digestion is strongest. Pitta is like fire. And so what is digestion? But all of that stomach acid, right? The fire of digestion. And then the recommendation is to have a lighter dinner before 7pm and that aligns with the Kapha period 6pm to 10pm that is said to support restful sleep and detoxification overnight. Okay, so this is the 5000 year old perspective. Let's talk about Western science right now and how it aligns very similarly to this pattern, just framed a little differently. So the recommendation in western science is wake up with the sunrise because it naturally boosts cortisol levels, improving alertness and mood. And you think, Wait, cortisol is not a stress hormone, but we have to have that little burst of cortisol in the morning to wake us up. And oftentimes, when I'm working with somebody, and we're looking at their lab work, and I'm hearing about their lifestyle and their fatigue and their low energy level, and we look at their am cortisol levels, they're quite low, and so that's going to make it you're going to feel more sluggish. It's going to be hard to get up. And that can be a sign of burnout, right? It could be a sign of the adrenal fatigue and burnout. So we want to gently wake up with the sun, and that natural rhythm helps to boost that cortisol level. It's recommended that we eat our heavier meals during the daytime, because that leverages our peak digestive enzyme activity and it promotes more efficient metabolism. The recommendation for evening eating in western science is to limit late night eating. It enhances our hormonal balance, improves sleep quality and supports overnight fasting, which has been shown to be beneficial for overall health and cancer prevention when we eat in alignment with our natural clock eating during daylight hours and resting from digestion at night, we allow our body to metabolize nutrients fully, we support reduced inflammation, and we maintain hormonal harmony, which is essential for good health, healthy terrain. There's more research that echoes this ancient Ayurvedic wisdom. There is a really pivotal study in JAMA oncology, and it found that women who practiced overnight fasting of at least 13 hours had a significant reduced risk of breast cancer recurrence. The researchers really beautifully summarized this and said that prolonging nightly fasting intervals could be a simple and effective strategy to reduce breast cancer recurrence. This aligns perfectly with Ayurveda guidance to rest your digestion As the day winds down. So I'll put the links to that study and another one I'm going to refer to here in just a moment in the show notes for this episode, which you'll find where you're listening to this podcast, where you're watching it on YouTube or on my website, the breast cancer recovery coach, com, forward, slash, 404, now, if you're watching it on YouTube, take a moment to subscribe. It helps more people who might need this information find the channel, and if you're listening to it on the podcast, go ahead and follow wherever you're at that all. So helps the show to be found by more people. That was total squirrel moment. So let me come back so you can read that information and click on those links in the show notes. But there was another study in cell metabolism, and it's very similar. It showed that participants who limited their eating window to around 10 hours each day not only improved their metabolic health, but they also experienced lower inflammation and enhanced sleep quality. So that study said that time restricted eating aligns with your circadian rhythms, promoting metabolic health and potentially lowering chronic disease risk. It's really amazing how modern science continually reflects ancient wisdom, and we move so far away from, I think we call it anecdotal now, right? Unless there's been a clinical study about it. But I want to stop for a second and talk about this idea of 13 hours going 13 hours without food, 14 hours, 16 hours. You know, we talk a lot about intermittent fasting, and a lot of times it's very intimidating. I know that when I first started fasting and I didn't really understand the best way to do it, it was also intimidating, because there's so much talk about how we have to eat every two or three hours, which is just absolute madness in my mind. Now, when I think about it, there are times when that can serve people depending on what their goal for food is, if they're trying to build muscle, if they're working out intensely, or if they're very, very sick and have absorption issues, right? There's different times for that, but overall, an overall healthy person, we just don't need to be eating all day long. Okay, so here's the thing, when I talk to people and they're like, oh my gosh, 14 hours without food. It's a little scary, but if you think about it, and if we align with the circadian rhythm, the time we're going without food is when we're asleep or when the day is winding down, right? So if you stop eating at seven o'clock at night and you don't eat again till nine o'clock in the morning, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? That's a 14 hour fast, and then you wake up, and you bring that energy back into your body with a nourishing breakfast, a big, bold, satisfying lunch, and then a gentle, kind of lighter dinner fare, so that your body can digest. And then when it's time for you to go to sleep, you know, you may be checked out consciously, but your body is working hard while you're sleeping. It's cleaning. It's, you know, getting all of those cells that aren't functioning right. It's doing so much restorative work, which is why we hear so much science emphasizing the importance of good, solid sleep now. So how can you apply this loving wisdom of Ayurveda and the awesome science of circadian rhythm to your life, I think the first thing is to really tune in and notice your natural patterns. Do you feel better when you eat larger meals when the sun is highest, mirroring that Ayurvedic belief that digestion peaks at midday? Can you gently shift your evening meal a little earlier, allowing longer overnight fasts and you might start small. I always recommend that you start small, because I think small steps are more sustainable, and think about adjusting. If you eat your dinner later, you want to finish up around seven, but if you're not eating till seven or eating at eight start by just shifting it back a half an hour earlier each week, and noticing how that works for you and for your family. And you know, I've had a lot of people say to me, you know, when I want to get home and eat with my spouse, right? We want to make dinner together. And I love that. And I think, you know, that's a great time to sit down and connect. But if you can both get on that page of eating the bigger meal at night. I mean, during the day, if you can eat that bigger meal during the day, then you can still connect and have that evening meal, but maybe something lighter, like my husband and I love to have a little charcuterie, you know, some olives and some cheese. And that makes a really lovely dinner, and something nice to chat over, you know, some nuts and cheese. So does our idea of dinner? You know, like the dinner I was raised on, we had to sit down to dinner, and you always had a meat and a starchy protein and a vegetable, right? And a salad. But is that really how we have to eat now, right? There was kind of a reason for that at some point in the world, in life after people worked at their butts off in a field all day long. That's not really what's happening for most of us. So if we think about and we change our idea or thoughts about when we eat and how we eat, when we eat, and we start to think of it, not as a restriction, oh my gosh. Now I can't have this big dinner at night with my family. But if we shift that, and we don't think about it as a restriction, but as an act of kindness, really honoring your own circadian rhythm and that of the people you love, it helps everybody be healthier. And you honor that Earth's rhythm, and you nurture your body and its healing processes, and you notice how your. Sleep Improves, how your energy might stabilize, and maybe you just feel a little lighter, a little better, right? So let's give some thought to that, and think about just taking that next step is being aware. How do you feel when you eat? And how could you shift that a little bit to support feeling a little better and see how it works. For you, every little awareness you have is is great change. I'm always telling my clients that awareness is the first step. When you become aware of what you're doing and how it feels. That, in itself, is a big step forward. And every step you take toward honoring your body's rhythm is a beautiful act of self love. It's an act of kindness to yourself. And we want to really frame it like that, and realize that it's self compassion to take good care of this body that you are in a lifelong relationship with, right? So think about that. Think about when you eat instead of what you eat. Let's shift that focus a little bit and see what works for you. All right, my friends, if you want more help with that, you can always find me at the breast cancer recovery coach. We can do metabolic health coaching together, where we take in the language of your body, your nutrition, genome, your labs, and I emphasize your because every single person is different. Now, we all may be in sync with the rhythm of the earth, and when we eat is going to have a big impact for all of us, but what we eat, when we eat, and how we apply these eating patterns to our life, we have so much power, and there's so much bio individuality that comes into play there. We work on mindset. We work on what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, and why we eat. I think this is always fascinating, why we make the choices we do, what we tell ourselves about them. You know, that it's a treat, or it's this, or, you know, I can't do something different. A lot of times, we just have to work on the mindset about what we think about food and why we think it, even if our body doesn't feel good. There was a saying in Ayurveda, prajnapara, which means that we commit crimes against our own wisdom, that we know that something is good for us and we don't do it anyway. And that right there is really important. When you realize I know that's good for me, that I don't do it anyway, that's an important step to change, because then you can get curious about it, right? Then you can say, Hmm, why do I do that? I wonder. That's interesting. What is it that drives me to this behavior that I know doesn't serve me? And there's a great opportunity there for a little more self love. All right, my friends, so check it out. Enjoy these days as they get longer and sunnier and warmer, and think about how you can align yourself with the cycles of this amazing planet we live on. All right. Take good care of yourself, and I'll talk to you again next week.