Synching Up Our Circadian Rhythms - If you've ever done any kind of long-distance travel, or just woken up feeling under-rested thanks to daylight saving time, you know how important your circadian clock is.

If you've ever done any kind of long-distance travel, or just woken up feeling under-rested thanks to daylight saving time, you know how important your circadian clock is. Like many things in your body, your circadian rhythm is more complicated than it might seem on the surface. Rather than being entirely brain-based, it's actually controlled by a collection of several circadian clocks (central and peripheral) that all work together to keep your gears turning like a well-oiled machine.

- By Jackie Appel

If you've ever done any kind of long-distance travel, or just woken up feeling under-rested thanks to daylight saving time, you know how important your circadian clock is. But you might not know that you technically have more than one.

Like many things in your body, your circadian rhythm is more complicated than it might seem on the surface. Rather than being entirely brain-based, it's actually controlled by a collection of several circadian clocks (central and peripheral) that all work together to keep your gears turning like a well-oiled machine.

And much like the gears of a machine, circadian clocks tend to work best when they're in sync. In fact, scientists now think aligning your body's various circadian clocks could help fight the effects of premature aging. The results of two studies on the matter were recently published in the journals Science and Cell Stem Cell.