Life Out of the Natural Rhythm: How Modern Life Disrupts Our Brain Health

A recent study in The Lancet Healthy Longevity confirms what many of us have long suspected: our modern way of life has pulled us far from the natural rhythms our bodies were built for — and it's costing us our brain health.

The article, titled:
Making time for brain health: recognising temporal inequity in dementia risk reduction confirms a growing concern that many people have felt intuitively: our fast-paced, digitally driven lives are deeply out of sync with the natural rhythms our bodies and brains evolved to follow. And this disruption is more than just uncomfortable — it may be putting our long-term brain health at risk.

Temporal Inequity: A Hidden Risk

The study introduces the concept of temporal inequity — the unfair and unequal access to discretionary time. In simpler terms, not everyone has the time to rest, connect socially, prepare healthy meals, or care for their physical and mental health. The researchers argue that this imbalance — often driven by social structures, work demands, and economic inequality — can significantly increase the risk of dementia, particularly among disadvantaged groups.

Crucially, this isn't just about screen time, long hours, or poor sleep. It's about a deeper, systemic issue: the disconnection from a way of living that once honored biological rhythms, natural light cycles, and seasonal patterns of rest and activity.

Remembering a Time of Natural Balance

Not so long ago — before World War I and even up through the mid-20th century — life, though physically demanding, followed a more grounded, nature-aligned rhythm. People generally woke at sunrise and went to bed shortly after sunset. The idea of working through the night was rare, limited mostly to certain professions like medicine or factory work, and even then, only a small portion of the population was affected.

Weekends weren’t for catching up on tasks or digital distractions. They were dedicated to festivals, markets, dancing, religious gatherings, and rest — all communal, social, and celebratory in nature. These weren’t luxuries, but natural extensions of the weekly rhythm of life.

Daily routines reflected the land and the seasons. Cows grazed freely in meadows during the day and were brought back in the evening to be milked — a ritual that brought fresh milk to the table each day. Many farming families made their own cheese, butter, and yogurt, not as a hobby, but as part of daily living. Pigs were fed with food scraps from neighbors and local businesses — potato peels, vegetable trimmings, and leftover bread — a cooperative form of waste reduction long before the term “sustainability” became popular.

Chickens roamed backyards, providing eggs, meat, and rich manure that fertilized home gardens. Butchers crafted sausages and smoked hams using real spices and traditional methods. Cold cuts weren’t factory processed, but prepared in small batches and shared within the community.

And while the men were often in the fields or workshops, women gathered in courtyards, knitting, sewing, embroidering, or preparing food together. These gatherings weren’t just productive — they were deeply social. Women offered emotional support during times of grief, celebrated each other’s joys, and passed down wisdom through conversation. Children played nearby under the watchful eyes of many, and learning happened organically — through doing, watching, and being together.

It was not a utopia. Life was hard in many ways. But there was a natural balance between work and rest, individual labor and communal support, and most importantly, a rhythm that allowed the body and brain time to recover, adapt, and thrive.

Health Rooted in Lifestyle

Despite lacking modern medicine or diagnostics, many people from that era experienced fewer chronic conditions now common: obesity, insulin resistance, anxiety-related disorders. They were often leaner, less stressed, and more physically active by default. Food was simple but fresh, prepared daily using seasonal ingredients. Preservation techniques like drying, canning, and fermenting were common, filling pantries with apples, pears, mushrooms, cabbage, pickles, jams, and smoked meats to carry families through the winter.

What they lacked in modern science, they made up for with a lifestyle that naturally promoted wellness. Physical labor was balanced with meaningful rest. Meals were nourishing and unprocessed. Community was strong, and the line between work, family, and social life was far less rigid than it is today.

The Disruption of Rhythm in Modern Life

Today, those natural rhythms are almost completely displaced. We are chronically overstimulated and under-rested. Artificial light delays our sleep, digital distractions fragment our attention, and long workdays (sometimes across multiple jobs) leave little time for preparing meals, spending time outdoors, or nurturing relationships.

Even leisure has become performative or screen-based — less about recovery, more about consumption. The result is time poverty — a measurable lack of time to engage in health-supporting behaviors, especially among lower-income and structurally disadvantaged groups. As the Lancet study shows, this isn’t a minor inconvenience. It contributes to long-term cognitive decline and increased dementia risk, simply because people don’t have the time to care for their own brains.

The Urgent Need for Temporal Justice

The authors of the study argue that time must be treated as a public health issue — as important as income, education, or access to care. We need systemic changes that acknowledge time as a limited and unevenly distributed resource. This includes workplace reforms that protect rest time, urban planning that fosters walkability and social connection, and health policies that make it easier for people to access the time they need to live well.

They call for new research to measure temporal inequity more precisely, long-term studies that link time use with cognitive outcomes, and real-world experiments to test what happens when people are simply given more time — and support — to care for their health.

Finding Our Way Back to Rhythm

We don’t need to go back in time to reclaim what was lost — but we do need to learn from it. Modern life offers many benefits, but the price we’re paying in terms of stress, disconnection, and poor health is too high. Rest, connection, nourishment, and community are not luxuries. They are biological necessities, and they require time.

We must reimagine progress — not as doing more, faster, but as living better, in rhythm with ourselves and our environments.

As the Lancet article powerfully reminds us:

“Time is both a resource and a site of inequity.”

It’s time we treated it that way — not just to improve productivity, but to protect our most vital organ: the brain.

“Time,” the study argues, “is both a resource and a site of inequity.” It’s time we treated it as such — for the sake of our brains, our bodies, and our collective future.

Search This Blog

Q and A: about health and research