The body doesn't work the same in January as in August. It doesn't have the same kind of energy on a Monday morning as on a Friday afternoon. Ignoring those rhythms doesn't remove them. It just makes us work against ourselves without realising it.
The body as a cyclical system
Human biology is organised in cycles. The best known is the circadian — the roughly 24-hour rhythm that regulates sleep, body temperature, hormone secretion and cognitive capacity. But there are longer cycles that also shape how a person feels and performs.
Ultradian cycles — ninety to a hundred and twenty minutes — regulate the alternation between high- and low-activation states across the day. Circannual cycles — yearly — respond to changes in light, temperature and day length through the seasons. And there are personal cycles — tied to work, life stages, travel patterns — that are specific to each individual.
Wellbeing that works over the long term is the kind that adapts to those rhythms rather than ignoring them.
What changes with the seasons
In spring and summer, greater light availability increases serotonin synthesis, lifts mood and makes physical activity easier. It's the time of year when the body finds it easiest to move, to make changes, to take on new rhythms.
In autumn and winter, fewer daylight hours lower serotonin and raise melatonin. The body naturally leans towards rest, introspection and conserving energy. Forcing it to keep the same rhythm as in July isn't just pointless — it's counterproductive.
An intelligent wellbeing programme isn't the same across every season. It adapts the type of activity, the intensity, the recovery protocols and the goals to the time of year.
The daily rhythms we ignore
Within each day there are windows of greater cognitive capacity, windows of greater physical capacity, and windows where the body needs recovery even if the schedule doesn't allow for it.
Most adults hit their cognitive peak between nine and twelve in the morning. Scheduling strategic meetings at four in the afternoon — when the circadian curve produces a natural dip in alertness — is one of the most effective ways to make poor decisions.
In the same way, forcing high-intensity training at seven in the morning without having completed the sleep cycle produces weaker physiological adaptations than training two hours later with a properly activated nervous system.
Designing with rhythms, not against them
The goal isn't to make anyone a slave to their biological cycles. It's to use that information to do the right thing at the right time: push when the body can give, recover when the body needs to receive.
At VES we design programmes that adapt to each person's real rhythm — their working hours, their travel cycles, their personal seasons — instead of imposing a generic protocol that ignores all of it.
Because wellbeing that works over the long term isn't the kind that promises the most. It's the kind that best understands how the person practising it works.
