Recommended Reading for the Public

Reset Your Inner Clock - Book Cover

Reset Your Inner Clock: The Drug-Free Way to Your Best-Ever Sleep, Mood and Energy

Michael Terman and Ian McMahan. New York: Avery, 2013

Sleep problems and depressed mood go hand in hand, forming a frustrating cycle. Michael Terman has analyzed the brain functions that feed these disorders. In Reset Your Inner Clock, he reveals the heart of his findings, a powerful program that recalibrates our internal clocks–our exquisitely designed sensitivity to the timing and brightness of light exposure. He shows how these need to be tuned to the modern demands of a 24/7 society.

Fighting Chance: How Unexpected Observations and Unintended Outcomes Shape the Science and Treatment of Depression

Fighting Chance: How Unexpected Observations and Unintended Outcomes Shape the Science and Treatment of Depression

Sarah Zabel. Sarah Zabel Enterprises, LLC: 2021

This is the first book for the lay and professional audience that seriously includes chronotherapies among the valid treatment options for depression. Sarah Zabel describes the range of hypotheses that have been invoked as underlying affective disorders, as well as our individual vulnerabilities (from genes, early life adversity, to the gut microbiome). A well-balanced and comprehensive guide to an important field.

Reset Your Inner Clock - Book Cover

Chasing the Sun: The new science of sunlight and how it shapes our bodies and minds

Linda Geddes. Profile Books Ltd, London; Welcome Collection, 2019 

Our biology is set up to work in partnership with the sun. Little wonder then that humans have long worshipped and revered our nearest star: life itself arose on earth because its relationship with the sun was a special one, and that relationship still affects us well into the era of electric lighting, indoor workdays, and vitamin D supplements.

Reset Your Inner Clock - Book Cover

The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight

Satchin Panda, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA. Rodale Books; Reprint edition, 2020   

Like most people, you probably wake up, get hungry for meals and doze off in bed around the same time every day. If you’ve ever experienced jet lag or pulled an all-nighter, you know that this schedule can easily be thrown off kilter. But for some people, that imbalance—difficulty sleeping at night, hunger at odd times, or sudden fatigue at noon—is a constant. If you’re one of those people, Dr. Satchin Panda, one of the leading researchers on circadian rhythms, has a plan to reset your body clock.

Enlighten your clock: How your body tells time

Coline Weinzaepflen, Manuel Spitschan. Frankfurt: OSF, 2021

This book is designed to be enjoyed by people aged 13 above who are curious about circadian rhythms, sleep, and the effects of light on our body and brain. The comic book is free and licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND. You can download it in PDF format from the book’s website https://enlightenyourclock.org/ and in 21 languages https://enlightenyourclock.org/translations/. The book is released on the UNESCO International Day of Light, a global initiative celebrating and appreciating the role of light in science, technology, culture, and the arts. Manuel Spitschan, PhD is a University Researcher Lecturer at Oxford and a member of CET’s Board of Advisors

Internal Time

Till Roenneberg. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012

Winner of a British Medical Association Book Award
A Brain Pickings Best Science Book of the Year

Early birds and night owls are born, not made. Sleep patterns may be the most obvious manifestation of the highly individualized biological clocks we inherit, but these clocks also regulate bodily functions from digestion to hormone levels to cognition.

Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing

Russell G. Foster and Leon Kreitzman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005

In this fascinating book, the chronobiologist Russell Foster and the journalist Leon Kreitzman explain the significance of the biological clock, showing how it has played an essential role in evolution and why it continues to play a vitally important role in all living organisms.

Seasons of Life: The Biological Rhythms That Enable Living Things to Thrive and Survive

Russell G. Foster and Leon Kreitzman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010

How do plants and animals “know” that the seasons will change? How do seasonal changes affect humans? What happens when the timing of seasonal events is altered? Just as daily events are timed by living creatures through circadian rhythms, so seasonal events are timed through an internal calendar that signals birds to return to nesting grounds, salmon to spawn, plants to flower, squirrels to hibernate, kelp to stop growing.

Sleep: A Very Short Introduction

Russell G. Foster and Steven W. Lockley. London: Oxford University Press, 2012

Why do we need sleep? What is sleep? What happens when we don’t get enough? Two chronobiologists seek the answers.

Life Time: Your Body Clock and Its Essential Roles in Good Health and Sleep

Russell Foster. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022

A guide to using the science of the body clock to promote better sleep, better health, and better thinking. Russell Foster is professor of circadian neuroscience, director of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi), and head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford.

Love Mornings: A science-based guide to waking up healthier and happier

Marian Stoschitzky, Simon Bellink, Klara Fleisch. Vienna, 2023.

Love Mornings helps you understand how your environment and lifestyle influence your natural sleep-wake cycle and morning tiredness. The book compactly explains the science behind the relevant mechanisms and shows the most effective measures for a morning-friendly rhythm. The topics covered include sleep pressure, cortisol and melatonin rhythms, light‘s effects on biology, exercise, thermoregulation and nutrition. You will get tools to sleep better and increase your morning energy, both directly and in the long term.

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