Today, scientists have come to the conclusion that all processes in the body proceed naturally. Human biological rhythms are tied to various processes. Depending on this, there are a huge number of them. Some are due to the alternation of day and night (repeated periods of sleep and wakefulness), others correspond to the phase of the moon or season. Cyclicity (that is, the period of time between repeating steps) is determined by the frequency of the rhythm-causing factor.
The constancy of the action of repeated changes in the environment causes a close correlation with the physiological processes of the body. That is why biological rhythms are preserved even when the action of the initiating and stimulating exogenous factor is terminated. This cyclic state can occur for a long time. Many scientists believe that adaptation can lead to change and rebuild for new repetitions. There is a special mechanism that determines the regulation of rhythm and helps a person not only to feel (feel), but also to measure time intervals. Such a mechanism is called a biological clock.
Today, scientists believe that biological rhythms are characteristic not only of organisms, but also of individual cells and their groups. Of greatest interest are rhythms with a frequency of about a day. They are called circadian.
Circadian rhythms are characteristic not only for humans, but also for animals, plants, fungi, and even microbes. The daily frequency is characterized not only by the sleep-wake cycle, but also by other physiological changes. In humans, not only sleep, but many other functions are subordinated to the circadian rhythm. This changes the level of blood pressure, body temperature, functional activity of various organs.
The baby’s biological rhythm is practically absent and develops only by the fifteenth week of life. This is primarily due to the fact that the development of cyclic endogenous processes is facilitated by the rhythm of environmental processes.
It is possible to rearrange the periodicity of repetitive processes within the body with prolonged exposure to changes in external rhythm. However, there are certain limits to such changes. So scientists experimentally found that a person with a perception of the day as 24 hours, can be reorganized into the perception of twenty-two to twenty-seven hours as a whole day, but it was not possible to achieve large changes.
Biological rhythms with greater frequency are the most difficult to observe. These recurring periods include lunar and seasonal. Currently, scientists have revealed an interesting feature - it turns out that the severity of rhythmic processes can be different (more or less pronounced) in different people. That is why there is an opinion that the moon phase affects some people, but not others.
Seasonality (or rhythm), due to the change of seasons (winter-summer), is characterized by corresponding changes in the physiological state of the human body. So in the summer (it is believed that due to the increased length of daylight hours) all physiological processes (for example, metabolism) are activated and accelerated. In the winter season (due to the shortened daylight hours), all metabolic processes slow down, the activity of the functioning of organs and systems of the whole organism drops significantly.
Thus, biological rhythms play a huge role in everyday life and cause a number of periodically repeated changes. Often, such features are taken into account by medical professionals. The most active are dietitians who take into account metabolic changes when developing individual treatment programs.