The case for natural time
Nature has its own clocks, humans invented theirs. They just forgot they already had one, their own biological clock. It is present in every cell and it does not like being messed about by modern inventions. Something is bound to go wrong.
Biology trumps modernity time and again. Can anyone escape the effects of night shifts, long-haul trips and 24/7 culture? Examples to the contrary are most welcome, but in the meantime we start from the premise that no one is immune to biological disruptions.
What became to be known as the circadian rhythm, the wake-sleep cycle, is linked to the planet we currently inhabit. That planet which spins around its own axis while orbiting the Sun. The result is that it presents only half of itself at a time to the ever radiant sunshine. When both halves have been seen by the Sun, a whole day is over and the story begins again.
“Give me a point on the surface of the Earth and I’ll tell you when it’s daytime or nighttime”.
Closer or further away from the Equator, the middle belt where daylight has about the same share as darkness, things change, depending as well on the time of the year.
The length of day and night increases or decreases, but nowhere is it just dark or just daytime.
It may be a 6-month night, as it is at the North Pole, but it is followed by a 6-month day. Nature is not linear. Nature takes turns, repeatedly, and the law of succesive states is replicated everywhere.
Human biology switches modes too, between awake and asleep. Our internal clock cannot be ignored when it orders a shut-eye.
We think we can trick it with a ‘snooze’ trick made up of coffee or tea, sheer willpower or fear of consequences if a certain task is not completed.
The trick works quite well until it doesn’t. Sleep comes back like a tsunami that has already wrecked bits of ourselves.
What is the point though of going on about biorhythms in a world that works by a different time pattern than the natural one?
Alright, nothing can be done to unravel century-old changes. No one is going back to the cave, to wake up at dawn and snuggle down when it’s dark. No one will start hibernating.
It is highly unlikely we’ll ever live again by natural time alone. We still should be aware of the price we pay for giving up the link to the Earth, Sun, Moon and seasons.
Skeptics only need to look up ailments, physical and psychological, linked to lack of sleep. Alternatively, they can try and remember what it felt like when they had to stay up long after their usual bedtime.
Third option, read the press release for the 2017 Nobel medecine prize, awarded for discoveries of mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.
