http://www.care2.com/greenliving/biorhythms-balanced-and-imbalanced-cycles.html
Biorhythms: Balanced And Imbalanced Cycles
The fact that the body, if left to itself, naturally wakes and sleeps on a twenty-five-hour cycle (known as the circadian rhythm) does not prevent us from waking and sleeping on a twenty-four-hour cycle without harm. On the other hand, studies of night-shift workers have demonstrated that their bodies never completely adjust to the reversal of the wake-sleep cycle.
Night workers suffer a higher incidence of colds and depression than day workers and tend to have chronically weakened immune systems.
What is fundamentally important about biorhythms, I believe, is that they provide the basis for the state of dynamic non-change. I used this phrase to describe the balance of opposites that must be maintained in order for the body to resist disorder. It is necessary that we think, feel, and move in balanced cycles.
If you decided to run a marathon and your body insisted on keeping to its “normal” levels of functioning, you would quickly collapse. A faster heartbeat, higher body temperature, and elevated blood pressure have to kick in for you to be able to run.
We are awash in a tide of balance and imbalance surging back and forth, dozens of bodily functions are disturbed every second, meaning that any fixed definition to health becomes meaningless. Food, water, and air flow through us in rhythmic patterns determined by dozens of variables, and residues of experience are built up like shifting sand dunes.
Structure and motion, the fixed and the changing, both count. Your doctor may tell you that you have a resting pulse of 80, blood pressure of 120/70, and body temperature of 98.6 degrees F, all of which are considered normal. Yet this assessment is purely for convenience. Such measurements are good only for the moment they are taken, for each dances around its balance point, creating the music of the living body.
Adapted from Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 1998).
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add your comment »THIS IS VERY INTERESTING! I AM A NIGHT SHIFT WORKER. ABOUT TO RETIRE! BUT, I HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED W/ FIBROMYALGIA. ACCORDING TO MY MEDICAL RECORDS... I AM VERY HEALTHY! YEAH RIGHT. I WONDER HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE MY BODY TO ADJUST TO SLEEPING AT NIGHT! I HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR NEARLY 33 YRS.
I DO NOT FEEL BALANCED AT ALL. BUT WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT. THERE ARE ALWAYS A MILLION THINGS YOU COULD , SHOULD BE DOING. I AM LEARNING(BECAUSE I'VE NOT MUCH CHOICE) THAT DOING IT ALL JUST IS NOT GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL!
SLEEPING ALL DAY, WELL I JUST MISS THE SUNSHINE! ALTHOUGH I DO SEE SOME SPECTACULAR SUNRISES COMING HOME IN THE AM!
BALANCE IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT! IF ONLY WE COULD LEARN THIS EARLIER IN LIFE...HOW MUCH SIMPLER WE COULD MAKE OUR LIVES!
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For me this information is right on. As a young nurse, I worked the night shift for three years and thought it was going to kill me. I was always sick, had trouble digesting my meals, could not sleep (even with the help of sleeping pills) during the day, was constantly irritable and low on energy. Then I switched to the afternoon shift (3p - 11p) and immediately all my symptoms went away. I felt great. Then I went to the day shift (7a - 3p) and found myself somewhere in between the two. I am what Uma calls the owl, my best time being from about 4p to midnight, and I am NOT a morning person at all, but I married one, lol. I think the lesson here is to know what your own natural bio-rhythms are and try to honor them as best as you can.
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I once read an article in some scientific journal that the reason wrens (day people and early risers) and owls( night people and late risers) tend to marry each other, and they do, and complain asking "WHY" with much drama, is a species survival mechanism so there would always be one awake parent guarding the young. All this aside after having known too many night people like pankaj who thrive on a night schedule I think that the adverse effects noted by Deepak are the result of people being forced to work outside their comfort norm and that is where the disturbance and ill effects set in.
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Well pretty interesting, Since the age of 16 yrs I have been going to school and working evenings or night. After Education I worked evenings and nights for the last 24 yrs of my life, I belive, I worked only two of the 24 yrs during days. I can say thru experience when working nights I am more relaxed, with clear thinking and get more done in life in genral. I found working days you and your life were more restricted to everything because you were always rushed into everything because there was another waiting for you to complete, eg kids,dinner,outing, traffic etc..... I had more information on political and life in general when working nights because I did not need the newscaster telling me what I should be listening to. I feel people who work evening and night are more balanced in thier life. This is from experience.
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