Whether you are a medical professional who is looking to move into a more research and scientific study-based role within your field of expertise, or else a medical student still training and considering your various options upon graduation, then either way, you have definitely clicked on the right article. Continue reading for Circadian Rhythms: 101.
What is Your Circadian Rhythm?
Your circadian rhythm is the pattern of your body throughout the cycle of being awake and asleep over an average twenty-four-hour period.
The vast majority of living organisms have a circadian rhythm, which is the prime factor in controlling an individual being’s schedule for sleep. There are a number of factors that can influence an individual’s circadian rhythm, including the following:
- Genetic changes, mutations, or indeed genetic predispositions
- Blue light emanating from smartphones, laptop screens, and tablets
- Shift work and working when everyone else is asleep
- Returning from another country and experiencing jet lag
Your Hormones
As you may predict, your hormones can have a significant impact on the normalcy of your own individual circadian rhythm, particularly the hormones cortisol and melatonin.
During the night, your body will naturally secrete more melatonin, which will make you feel tired, sleepy, and even a little lethargic, and during the day, much less melatonin is present. Conversely, the hormone cortisol makes the human boy alert, motivated, and more focused, and as such, your brain will only naturally secrete higher levels of cortisol during the morning and throughout the afternoon.
As well as cortisol and melatonin, there are also several other hormones that are known to play a role in the circadian rhythm of an individual, which are leptin, vasopressin, insulin, and acetylcholine.
The Study of Circadian Rhythms
Medical professionals and scientific researchers are incredibly interested in the natural circadian rhythms and how they can vary from person to person.
Studies are continually being conducted, primarily by research into human beings and organisms that hold the same kind of genes relating to their biological clock, such as humanized mice and fruit flies. These organisms are used because they both have the same circadian rhythm as human beings do. Experts look for similarities and patterns associated with how specific components of the genes in an organism contribute to and, indeed, affect and create irregular and unnatural circadian rhythms, as they would in a human.
Circadian Rhythms Vary with Age
Babies under the age of two months have, as you will already have worked out if you are a parent, not yet developed their own circadian rhythm – and this only comes with their body’s adaptation to their experiences, the people, and the environment around them.
For teenagers, a sleep phase delay occurs, usually between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, which essentially results in them not feeling tired and ready to go to sleep much later in the night than they did before. Just like children, teenagers need between nine and ten hours of sleep every night to operate effectively.
As an adult, as long as you are eating healthily and taking daily exercise, it is highly likely that you have a balanced circadian rhythm, with the normal number of hours your body would expect to sleep for ranging between seven and nine.
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