Bring back the night
Our lives are ruled by time and we use time to tell us what to do. But the digital alarm clock that wakes us in the morning or the wristwatch that tells us we are late for supper are unnatural clocks. Our biology dances to a more ancient beat that probably started to work in our humans' early life.
The instructions for a biological clock are fixed within our genes, and those of almost all life on Earth. And they also affect our levels of attention, mood, physical strength, blood pressure and much more.
Biological clocks help time our sleep patterns. This marks the passage of approximately 24 hours and controls everything we do. Our clocks are even used to predict the differing demands of the 24-hour day and adapt our behavior in advance of changing conditions.
By contrast, as dawn approaches, our bodies get themselves ready for increased activity when we wake. Few of us appreciate this internal world, however. We are drawn by an apparent freedom to sleep, work, eat, drink or travel when we want.
Body clocks differ between people. If you are alert in the morning and go to bed early, you are a morning "lark", but if you hate mornings and want to keep going through the night, you are a night "owl". Inour first decade, we tend to wake early, but by the time we are teenagers, bedtimes and getting-up times become later and later.
This habit of getting up later continues until we are about 20 years old. Bythe age of 55—60 we are getting up as early as we did when we were 10. This could explain why young adults really do have a problem getting up in the morning. They show both delayed sleep and lack of sleep because they are going to bed late but still having to get up early in the morning.
We humans have welcomed the freedom to do what we want, when we want to do it. Our 24/7 society has affected the night, an apparent victory of civilization over nature. Disrupting sleep actually has a negative effect on our brains and that drives many of us to substitute the rhythm normally imposed by internal time with coffee and sugary snacks to give us energy and keep us awake. But we have not achieved freedom. We have just created a 24/7 timetable which we cannot keep to without damaging our health.
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A. There are fewer absences and improved results. B. Even our ability to learn and do well in exams is affected by them. C. These include, in fact, increased errors, poor memory, reduced mental and physical reaction times and reduced motivation. D. At this point there is a change towards earlier sleep and waking times. E. But the reality is that our society is replacing a biological order developed over millions of years with a false impression. F. These differences are partly laid down within our genes but they also change significantly as we get older. G. Before we go to bed, our body temperature drops, our blood pressure decreases, and tiredness increases. |
