Understanding Fasting as a Biological Rhythm


Does RISE Break a Fast? A Circadian and Biological Perspective

One of the most common questions we are asked about RISE is: "Does it break a fast?"

The simple answer is yes. From a strict physiological standpoint, RISE does break a fast due to the metabolic and neurological responses it initiates. However, the real answer is far more nuanced when considered through the lens of circadian biology, evolutionary patterns, and the diverse goals behind fasting.

 

Understanding Fasting Through a Biological Lens

Fasting is not simply a wellness trend; it is a deeply conserved biological behaviour observed across mammalian species. Feeding and fasting cycles in mammals are governed by circadian rhythms, the internal timekeeping systems that align physiological functions with the 24-hour light-dark cycle. For humans, as diurnal mammals, this translates to a biological expectation of feeding during the daylight hours and fasting during the night.

Light exposure upon waking triggers the cortisol awakening response and sympathetic nervous system activation, priming the body for movement, energy expenditure, and nutrient intake. These are the hours when metabolic efficiency is highest: insulin sensitivity peaks, digestion is most active, and cognitive performance is most reliable.

In this context, fasting is not only about the absence of food, but also about the timing of food intake. Eating in alignment with the body's active phase supports metabolic and hormonal regulation more effectively than simply prolonging fasting duration.

 

Intermittent Fasting and Circadian Timing

The 16:8 intermittent fasting model (16 hours fasting, 8 hours feeding) is widely popular and increasingly supported by scientific literature. However, its success depends largely on when that eating window occurs.

Research shows that eating earlier in the day, such as between 10am and 6pm, better aligns with the body's circadian rhythm and improves insulin response, energy metabolism, and overall metabolic health (Charlot et al., 2021; Świątkiewicz et al., 2021).

Conversely, eating late in the day or at night when melatonin begins to rise can impair glucose metabolism, increase fat storage, and disrupt the synchrony between central and peripheral clocks (Shim et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2021).

While the ideal fasting pattern is to begin eating shortly after sunrise, when the sympathetic system activates and the body is biologically primed for food, many people adjust their fasting windows to suit lifestyle demands. A 10am to 6pm window, for instance, allows for family meals and social routines while still maintaining circadian alignment.

 

How RISE Interacts with Fasting Goals

RISE is formulated to support the biological transition from rest to wake. It contains ingredients such as creatine, natural caffeine from coffee bean extract, coconut water powder, B vitamins, and choline. These activate both the central nervous system and peripheral metabolism, stimulating mitochondrial activity, neurotransmitter synthesis, and ATP production.

For those following fasting protocols aimed at autophagy, gut rest, or calorie restriction, RISE would be considered as breaking the fast. It initiates a measurable physiological response and provides low-calorie substrates that are metabolised by the body.

However, for individuals whose fasting goals include energy enhancement, mental clarity, or metabolic consistency throughout the active phase, RISE can be a powerful tool. It supports the natural circadian transition into sympathetic dominance and complements the body's expectation of morning fuel.

Rather than contradicting fasting, it may reinforce its benefits when used with strategic timing.

 

Circadian Synchronisation and Dietary Timing

Numerous studies have highlighted the role of circadian synchronisation in maximising the health benefits of dietary choices. Time-restricted eating, when aligned with natural light cycles, improves metabolic markers, reduces the risk of cardiometabolic disease, and supports cognitive performance (Moon et al., 2020; Liang et al., 2022).

Mismatched eating patterns, particularly late-night or irregular meals, can disrupt this harmony, impairing glucose regulation and promoting inflammation (Nakazawa et al., 2025; Zhang et al., 2025).

By consuming RISE early in the day, especially in proximity to sunrise, users may benefit from enhanced metabolic alignment. This timing mirrors the evolutionary pattern of feeding during the active daylight phase, offering the cognitive and physiological support the body expects upon waking.

 

Personalisation Is Key

The question of whether RISE breaks a fast is ultimately one of context. If your priority is autophagy or gut rest, delaying RISE until your eating window begins may be appropriate. But if your focus is performance, cognitive function, or circadian alignment, RISE is likely a helpful addition to your morning routine.

The most effective fasting strategies are not rigid. They are adaptive, biologically informed, and responsive to both internal rhythms and external lifestyle demands.

 

References

Phil Learney
Tags: Biohacking Cognition Fasting Habits and Behaviours Motivation Neuroscience Nutrition Rituals Self Development
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The First 7 Minutes After Waking: Why They Matter More Than You Think

The First 7 Minutes After Waking: Why They Matter More Than You Think

Modern neuroscience confirms what ancient traditions have practised for millennia: the first few minutes after you wake up are biologically powerful.

Your brain doesn’t flick on like a light switch. It transitions, slowly and delicately, through a cascade of brainwave states:

Delta → Theta → Alpha → Beta

These transitions reflect the shift from deep sleep (delta), through drowsiness and subconscious processing (theta), into relaxed awareness (alpha), and eventually into full alertness (beta).

Gamma, the fastest and most subtle of the brainwave frequencies, is typically associated with heightened cognitive processing, insight, and peak states of consciousness. While not dominant in the first few minutes of waking, gamma activity can emerge later in the morning, or more rapidly in trained meditators, when the brain begins to integrate thought, emotion, and sensory input into a coherent experience.

 

 

This means that during the first 5 to 10 minutes of wakefulness, you’re not fully asleep, but you’re not fully awake either. You’re in a unique, mouldable neurobiological state that scientists call a neuroplastic window, where your brain is most open to new programming.

This is your most influential moment of the day.

 

What’s Happening in Your Brain

During this waking transition:

  • The Default Mode Network (DMN), the brain’s internal narrator, begins to light up. It controls self-talk, emotional tone, and how we perceive ourselves and the world (Smallwood et al., 2021; Edlow et al., 2024).

  • The Reticular Activating System (RAS) switches on. It decides what’s important by scanning your environment through the lens of your current emotional state (Negelspach et al., 2025).

  • Your brain hemispheres synchronise, promoting coherence, clarity, and creative thinking (Wang et al., 2025).

 

Stressful first thoughts?

The RAS filters your day through threat detection.

Grateful first thoughts?

It scans for opportunity, healing, and connection.

Your first thoughts are not neutral. They set your emotional and cognitive trajectory for the entire day (Yadav & Purushotham, 2025; Devaney et al., 2021).

You’re Not Just a Mind in a Body

You are an electromagnetic system living in a connected field of energy. Research now supports what mystics, monks, and performance experts have known for decades:

Your thoughts become biology. Your biology becomes behaviour. Your behaviour becomes your future.

When your intention (mental clarity) aligns with an elevated emotion (like awe, gratitude, or joy), you begin to create physiological coherence, a synchronised state between your brain, heart, and nervous system (Ahn et al., 2021; Bukkieva et al., 2022).

In this state:

  • Synaptic pathways rewire

  • Your immune system balances

  • Emotional resilience strengthens

  • Gene expression can shift

  • Your nervous system "memorises" a new baseline (Valenta et al., 2025; Titone et al., 2023)

 


Your 7-Minute Morning Protocol

You don’t need technology. You don’t need a perfect routine.
You just need awareness and intention.

Here is a practical protocol, backed by neuroscience, to help you rewire your mind and body from the moment you wake up:

Step-by-Step 7-Minute Morning Protocol

You don’t need technology. You don’t need a perfect routine.
You need awareness and intention.

The first few minutes after waking are a powerful biological window—a period of heightened neuroplasticity and emotional influence. What you do in this time shapes how your nervous system responds to the world for the rest of the day.

Here’s a practical step-by-step protocol to guide those first moments with intention:

1. Wake Gently

Let your body come to naturally. Avoid harsh alarms that jolt your system into a stress response. Give yourself permission to rise slowly, without urgency.

2. Avoid Your Phone

Reaching for your phone immediately forces your brain into beta waves (high-alert mode), disrupting the slower, more programmable states of theta and alpha. Stay in the softness of waking. Let your internal world settle before external stimuli intrude.

3. Place Your Hand on Your Heart

This simple act grounds you. It activates the vagus nerve, supporting emotional regulation and heart-brain coherence. Let your attention settle into your body.

4. Breathe Slowly and Deeply

Inhale through the nose for 4 seconds, exhale through the mouth for 6. Repeat for 3 to 4 minutes. This breathing pattern supports parasympathetic activation—bringing calm, focus, and internal alignment.

5. Cultivate an Elevated Emotional State

Bring to mind someone or something you deeply love. Recall a moment of awe, joy, or deep gratitude. Smile gently. Let your body feel calm, safe, and expansive. This is not about performance—it’s about coherence.

6. Speak Like Your Future Self

Now that your system is receptive, introduce affirmations—spoken internally or aloud—as your future self would speak them. Use intentional, emotionally resonant language.

Here are some modern, grounded affirmations to guide you:

Personal Leadership & Direction

Affirmations that reinforce clarity, self-trust, and inner authority:

  • “I lead my life with clarity and calm direction.”

  • “I respond with purpose, not pressure.”

  • “I honour progress over perfection today.”

  • “I am becoming the version of me I respect.”

  • “I trust my process. I’m already aligned.”

  • “I am exactly where I need to be to take the next step.”

Resilience & Adaptability

Affirmations that support emotional flexibility and grounded strength:

  • “Whatever arises, I meet it with presence and capacity.”

  • “I am wired for change and built for resilience.”

  • “Challenge sharpens me. I stay grounded in motion.”

  • “I move from centre, not from stress.”

  • “My nervous system is calm, and my mind is clear.”

Focus & Intentional Action

Affirmations that support mental clarity, focus, and productive intention:

  • “Today I move with direction, not distraction.”

  • “I choose energy that matches my intention.”

  • “I prioritise what matters. The rest can wait.”

  • “Peace is my default. Focus is my return point.”

Gratitude & Emotional Coherence

Affirmations that promote emotional alignment and heart-brain synchrony:

  • “This day is a gift. I meet it with quiet strength.”

  • “I feel supported, resourced, and ready.”

  • “My heart leads. My body follows. My mind aligns.”

Each of these is a message to your nervous system, spoken as if the future is already embodied. Use them in stillness. Speak them with emotion. Let your physiology anchor the future you’re rehearsing.

7. Visualise Your Desired Reality

Now, visualise your ideal day, state, or outcome, not as a hope, but as if it has already occurred. Let it play in your mind’s eye with detail and emotional texture. This isn’t wishing. It’s rehearsing coherence.

 

Why It Works

This process works because it aligns with your biology:

  • Neuroplasticity is at its peak during transitional states, especially when paired with strong emotions and repetition (Chen et al., 2025).

  • The Reticular Activating System (RAS) filters your environment through the emotional lens you set at waking (Devaney et al., 2021).

  • Coherence between heart and brain enhances clarity, memory, and immune response (Mueller et al., 2021; Jespersen et al., 2024).

  • Repeating these patterns daily helps your nervous system establish them as a new baseline (Dennison, 2024; Ma et al., 2023).


Final Thoughts

The first seven minutes of your day are not a luxury. They are leverage.

  • Coherence is the signal.

  • Intention is the vector.

  • Emotion is the charge.

So tomorrow morning, don’t scroll. Don’t rehearse stress.

Instead, tune your frequency.

Let your thoughts direct your biology. Let your body believe before your mind begins to doubt.

Your brain is listening.
Your cells are listening.
The field is listening.

Train it. Shape it. Repeat it.

References

Aggarwal, A. (2025). Brain connectivity using EEG data. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.26.634935

Ahn, J., Lee, D., Namkoong, K., & Jung, Y. (2021). Altered functional connectivity of the salience network in problematic smartphone users. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.636730

Bukkieva, T., Pospelova, M., Efimtsev, A., Fionik, O., Alekseeva, T., Samochernych, K., & Shevtsov, M. (2022). Functional network connectivity reveals the brain functional alterations in breast cancer survivors. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(3), 617. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11030617

Chen, J., Lewis, L., Coursey, S., Catana, C., Polimeni, J., Fan, J., & Rosen, B. (2025). Simultaneous EEG-PET-MRI identifies temporally coupled, spatially structured hemodynamic and metabolic dynamics across wakefulness and NREM sleep. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.17.633689

Devaney, K., Levin, E., Tripathi, V., Higgins, J., Lazar, S., & Somers, D. (2021). Attention and default mode network assessments of meditation experience during active cognition and rest. Brain Sciences, 11(5), 566. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050566

Dennison, P. (2024). The enigma of jhāna and implications for neuroscience, consciousness studies and research methodology. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/ncp25

Edlow, B., Olchanyi, M., Freeman, H., Li, J., Maffei, C., Snider, S., & Kinney, H. (2024). Multimodal MRI reveals brainstem connections that sustain wakefulness in human consciousness. Science Translational Medicine, 16(745). https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.adj4303

Hardikar, S., McKeown, B., Schaare, H., Wallace, R., Xu, T., Lauckner, M., & Smallwood, J. (2024). Macro-scale patterns in functional connectivity associated with ongoing thought patterns and dispositional traits. eLife, 13. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.93689

Jespersen, K., Stevner, A., Kringelbach, M., Someren, E., Vidaurre, D., & Vuust, P. (2024). Modelling of brain dynamics reveals reduced switching between brain states in insomnia disorder – a resting-state fMRI study. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.27.625644

Ma, M., Li, Y., Shao, Y., & Weng, X. (2023). Effect of total sleep deprivation on effective EEG connectivity for young males in resting-state networks in different eye states. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1204457

Mueller, J., Pritschet, L., Santander, T., Taylor, C., Grafton, S., Jacobs, E., & Carlson, J. (2021). Dynamic community detection reveals transient reorganization of functional brain networks across a female menstrual cycle. Network Neuroscience, 5(1), 125–144. https://doi.org/10.1162/netn_a_00169

Negelspach, D., Kennedy, K., Huskey, A., Cha, J., Alkozei, A., & Killgore, W. (2025). Mapping the neural basis of wake onset regularity and its effects on sleep quality and positive affect. Clocks & Sleep, 7(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep7010015

Smallwood, J., Bernhardt, B., Leech, R., Bzdok, D., Jefferies, E., & Margulies, D. (2021). The default mode network in cognition: A topographical perspective. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 22(8), 503–513. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-021-00474-4

Titone, S., Samogin, J., Peigneux, P., Swinnen, S., Mantini, D., & Albouy, G. (2023). Frequency-dependent connectivity in large-scale resting-state brain networks during sleep. European Journal of Neuroscience, 59(4), 686–702. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.16080

Valenta, S., Ventura, S., Benuzzi, F., Rizzello, F., Gionchetti, P., Ronchi, D., & Filippini, N. (2025). A heavy feeling in the stomach: Neural correlates of anxiety in Crohn’s disease. Neurogastroenterology & Motility, 37(7). https://doi.org/10.1111/nmo.70029

Wang, X., Peters, E., Strelen, J., Lockhart, N., Franklin, M., LaBerge, S., & Erlacher, D. (2025). EEG microstates reveal distinct network dynamics in lucid and non-lucid REM sleep. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.12.637792

Yadav, A., & Purushotham, A. (2025). Cortical structure in nodes of the default mode network estimates general intelligence. Brain and Behavior, 15(5). https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.70531

Yang, M. (2025). Study on large-scale brain network abnormalities in patients with beta-thalassemia. Brain and Behavior, 15(6). https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.70614

Performance Hospitality: What Is Still Being Overlooked

Performance Hospitality: What Is Still Being Overlooked

The hospitality industry is in the midst of a significant evolution. Wellness is no longer a niche feature or optional add-on. It is becoming a central pillar of the guest experience.

Understanding Fasting as a Biological Rhythm

Understanding Fasting as a Biological Rhythm

Fasting is not simply a wellness trend; it is a deeply conserved biological behaviour observed across mammalian species. Feeding and fasting cycles in mammals are governed by circadian rhythms, the internal timekeeping systems that align physiological functions with the 24-hour light-dark cycle.