The Circadian Sunlight

A rhythm is something that is regularly repeated. All living organisms experience rhythmic changes which tend to coincide with seasonal or daily environmental changes. Most organisms have an internal biological clock called endogenous pacemakers, which are influences by external environmental factors called exogenous zeitgebers, these control periodic changes. The sleep wake cycle is a circadian rhythm that repeats itself every 24 hours. However these can become desynchronised, resulting in a disruption of your biological rhythm. It can be disrupted by many factors, including Jet lag and shift work.

These cycles are based on the approximately twenty-four-hour tau of humans and external factors, called zeitgebers. The sleep cycle affects multiple parts of a person’s day, including school or work, naps, eating, or driving. Research has found that there is an endogenous clock but that animals are also affected by external cues through free-running experiments. An experiment was done concerning circadian rhythms and their connection through metabolism. The researchers looked at multiple factors affecting sleep as a homeostatic process along with a circadian process (Albrecht 27). These factors included neurotransmitters, protein kinases, and metabolism, along with others. The way the body affects our behavior is apparent when looking at the habit that is

Circadian rhythms occur every 24 hours; an example of a circadian rhythm is the sleep-waking cycle. We are diurnal animals who are active during the daytime and asleep at night, other animals are nocturnal they are active at night but asleep during the day. The circadian rhythm depends on the interaction of physiological and psychological processes to be tuned into the sleep-waking cycle so energy is provided when needed. As diurnal humans we have a fairly stable sleep pattern with the time we go to sleep and the time we wake up, this consistency suggests an internal mechanism controls sleep, endogenous pacemaker. However, this can be overridden by external factors, exogenous zeitgebers.

The circadian rhythm is very important in analyzing ones sleep pattern like when they are a sleep pattern like when they are a sleep and when they are awake. One’s normal circadian clock is based on light-dark times over 24 hours.()

The human body has a plethora of rhythms that regulate activity such as behavioral processes, physiological functions, moods, and performance. Sleep is a major action that falls into this category of

Regimented sleep schedule: By sticking with a regimented or strict sleep schedule, your circadian rhythm should adapt. Those with variable sleep schedules may have a circadian rhythm that isn’t aligned with their sleep schedule, thus resulting in all types of physiological chaos. Decreasing this physiological chaos with a good sleep schedule may also reduce the

Humans have a natural rhythm of 25 hours of sleep and wakefulness, in order to reset this the brain plays an important role with the suprachiasmatic nucleus which is a cluster of neurons in the medial hypothalamus of the brain. The SCN

Circadian rhythm is another sleep disorder that has to do with our body functions. In this case, our body clocks are off, due an internal change or external factors like a change in time zones or regions where a midnight sun occurs during a 24-hour period. Bright lights in a room have a similar effect on sleep.

In another study involving twelve adult participants between the ages of 18-59 who had a diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder, light therapy was found to help correct the natural melatonin secretion cycle (Rice, Mayor, Tucker, & Bielski, 1995). Melatonin is a hormone secreted at nighttime by the pineal gland, and plays a role in human sleep and wake cycles by aiding the process of sleep.

Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, short for Non-24, is a chronic circadian rhythm disorder that affects people that are completely blind. The circadian rhythms control the body clock and regulate sleep-wake cycle and various other cycles that are critical in the body. In most people, this body clock runs marginally longer than 24 hours. This means that rather than cycle on a 24-hour day, most people’s natural rhythms actually run a bit longer. Whether the cycle runs two minutes or 30 minutes longer, patients with Non-24 have these minutes add up day after day, few days adding to a few more the next. Eventually causing evident changes in one’s body. Their body’s circadian rhythm becomes out of sync from regular day and night cycle.

1. An example of this would be our response to light. We follow a circadian rhythm of being awake in the daytime, and sleeping when it is dark outside.

Now, how does melatonin was a regulator of the sleep wake cycle in organisms. Well, melatonin works by binding to high affinity receptors in the G-protein coupled receptor superfamily in the brain (Foulkes et al. 1997). The G-protein coupled receptor superfamily are a group of proteins that sense compounds around the outside of the cell and activate inside signal transduction and create cellular responses (Schomerus and Korf 2005). So, this means that the melatonin produced promote circadian

Circadian rhythm is a daily cycle of activity that is performed. For example, going to the gym, school, and then work, is a daily cycle, whereas sitting on the couch all day and occasionally driving to the store and back is not. It is doing something with your body, but not over doing it. Stress reduction techniques such as yoga and meditation helps to release energy. And treating insomnia in its early stages helps prevent psychiatric disorders such as depression. The longer you wait to try to cure insomnia the longer and harder it is going to be.

This cycle is being controlled by 2 different systems in the body which are called circadian rhythm (process C) and sleep wake homeostasis (process C). They are closely related and provide a balance between each other. (Mastin, 2013, “The Two Process of Sleep Regulation”). Circadian rhythm is governed by circadian clock which is the key mechanism that regulates the timing of sleep in the hypothalamus. It is also regulator of feeding models, core body temperature, cell regeneration, brain wave activity and hormone activity which is organized by light dark cycle. Circadian rhythm of all animals is arranged according to the surrounding by external factors which are called Zeitgebers (In German it means time givers). Day light is the most significant Zeitgeber since humans are mostly active during the daytime. This internal clock is independent with the length of the sleep. For example even longer sleep than usual might be not enough or inefficient if it does not occur at the right time of the circadian cycle. Mastin (2013) stated that ıf sleep occurs at the right time of the circadian cycle core body temperature decreases to the minimum level around 4.30-5.00 am and melatonin hormone which is produced in the pineal gland, cause drowsiness and decrease body temperature starts to be secreted around 8.00-9.00 pm until 7.00-8.00 am (“Circadian Rhythms”). Second

Aside from noticing night and day and clocks our body has its own system to tell us when to sleep and when to wake, our circadian rhythm. The human body naturally runs on a twenty five hour clock, so living on a twenty four hour schedule is often hard on the body because it loses an hour each day. On top of this natural loss most people do not get the right amount of sleep each night which can cause a whole host of problems. This is part of