What is circadian rhythm all about?

Ever wondered why jet lag happens or why sometimes people go through sleep deprivation??

Why people working in shifts have problems when their shift changes or their body inadvertently makes them feel sleepy as per their shift cycle?

Why some animals are nocturnal i.e. roam out during night and sleep during day??

Every wondered why? Why? WHYYYYYY?

Let's find out then!

So we all have clocks in our home right to know what time is it or to schedule our work ahead!!

In a similar way, our body has a master clock which ofcourse runs 24/7. The clock has a certain rhythm to it in a way through which it manages our sleep wake cycle for us, that particular rhythm is called as CIRCADIAN RHYTHM.

Obviously the question now will be, how does it do that?? Who tells the time for it to know exactly how to manage our wake sleep cycle. 

Well let's read more to find more about it!

Circadian rhythm which specifically applies to all living beings not just control the sleep wake cycle but also has control over cellular, behavioral, psychological, hormonal, fertility, metabolic and many more aspects of life.

This rhythm gets affected by many factors like light, temperature, oxygen levels, steroids, hormones ingestion, physical activity, lifestyle, stress, age and many more.

Light kind of plays an important role in this. The light dark cycle has an varied impact on the rhythm. 

 MELATONIN and CORTISOL are the two hormones which kind of regulates the sleep and wake for us. One can say loosely that melatonin makes us go zzzzzzzzz i.e sleepy and cortisol makes us feel alert. That said the level of melatonin and cortisol varies throughout the day for us living beings

Also its different for babies, teens, aged beings..

There is a reason why babies have an erratic sleep cycle as for them circadian rhythm takes time to develop. Why people who are aging tend to feel sleep little early then teens has its reasoning on the level of these hormones.

Body is adjusted to your current timezones and manages the rhythm accordingly. That is the reason why we feel disruptions when we move to places with different timezones as the biological clock of ours takes some time(days) to properly adjust to the time cycle.

Well now you know atleast something about the internal biological clock of yours..

That's about it for now.. Until next time, remember the curious mind talks!!!

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