🕰️ When the Rhythm Breaks: Metabolic Tempo, Hormesis, and the Road to Resilience or Ruin

What if health isn’t just about what we eat, how we move, or how we sleep — but when we do them?

Recent insights into the circadian rhythm of adrenal glucocorticoids (GCs) — our body’s key stress hormones — reveal that our physiological resilience depends on more than just balance. It depends on tempo.

In a narrative review (Biochim Biophys Acta, 2011), Chung and colleagues showed that GC secretion is orchestrated not only by the brain’s master clock (SCN) but also by a local adrenal clock that anticipates daily energy demands. This isn’t simply a reaction to stress — it’s a proactive rhythm that governs metabolism, immune regulation, brain function, and repair.

When this rhythm breaks, the body begins to lose its internal coherence. And that’s when dysfunction begins.

⏳ Metabolic Tempo: More Than Just Hormones

Your body runs on timing.

This metabolic tempo — the coordinated cycling between activity and recovery, catabolism and anabolism — is the invisible metronome of health. It’s echoed in feeding-fasting cycles, sleep-wake rhythms, and the rise and fall of cortisol.

Dr. Tippairote has proposed this tempo as central to biological resilience. His analyses of time-restricted eating (TRE) studies reveal that synchronizing eating with cortisol’s natural morning peak improves metabolic health — without changing calorie intake. It’s not just what or how much you eat. It’s when.

This idea resonates with Edward Calabrese’s concept of catabolic–anabolic cycling of hormesis: small, time-limited stressors (fasting, cold, heat, movement) activate catabolic repair and are followed by anabolic rebuilding — strengthening the system. But this cycle only works if recovery is built in.

Health is not in the stress. Health is in the rhythm.

⚠️ Chronically Breaking the Beat

When stress is acute and rhythmic, it’s adaptive. But when stress becomes chronic and unrelenting, the GC rhythm starts to erode.

Early signs of dysrhythmia include:

• Insomnia

• Anxiety and panic

• Wired-tired fatigue

• Loss of hormonal fluctuation

The HPA axis is in overdrive. The catabolic phase dominates. Recovery is skipped.

But eventually, the system crashes. This late phase — flattened cortisol rhythm, energy collapse, emotional blunting, and immune suppression — marks the onset of Exposure-Related Malnutrition (ERM), a concept Tippairote introduced to describe the bioenergetic cost of sustained adaptation.

This is no longer stress. It’s failure to recover. And it’s the path toward accelerated aging, metabolic syndrome, depression, and degenerative disease.

🌿 Reclaiming the Rhythm

The good news?

This rhythm is biologically restorable. You don’t have to reverse time. You just have to restore tempo.

Practical steps:

• 🌅 Anchor your circadian rhythm with morning light and nighttime darkness

• ⏰ Time meals earlier in the day (early TRE) to align with natural cortisol peaks

• 🧘 Decompress in the evening to support GC descent and parasympathetic recovery

• 🧬 Support mitochondrial health to fuel both stress response and repair

• 📈 Track circadian biomarkers (HRV, cortisol, glucose, temperature) to catch early signs of misalignment

As Tippairote’s work on TRE shows, temporal alignment alone — even without dietary changes — can restore resilience.

🔁 Resilience Is a Rhythm

Chung et al.’s work on adrenal circadian rhythms reminds us: this isn’t just about hormones. This is about timing.

When glucocorticoid rhythm breaks, the body loses its pulse. The daily dance of readiness and rest, catabolism and repair, falls apart. This marks the shift from adaptation to exhaustion, from vitality to vulnerability.

Both Calabrese and Tippairote show us: resilience is not the avoidance of stress — it’s the capacity to return. To oscillate. To recover.

Reclaim your rhythm. Reclaim your resilience.

📚 References:

Chung, S., Son, G. H., & Kim, K. (2011). Circadian rhythm of adrenal glucocorticoid: Its regulation and clinical implications. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Basis of Disease, 1812(5), 581–591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbadis.2011.02.003

Tippairote, T., Janssen, S., & Chunhabundit, R. (2020). Restoration of metabolic tempo through time-restricted eating (TRE) as the preventive measure for metabolic diseases. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 61(14), 2444–2453. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2020.1781050

Tippairote, T., Hoonkaew, P., Suksawang, A. et al. From adaptation to exhaustion: defining exposure-related malnutrition as a bioenergetic phenotype of aging. Biogerontology 26, 161 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-025-10302-2