The Circadian Rhythm and Biological Clock.
For the past several months, mine has been off… WAY off. What is the Circadian rhythm? In a nutshell, it is the roughly 24 hour cycle in the physiological process in living beings, from animals to plants. And the Biological clock is linked to it. It has an affect on mental and physical functions, from clarity of thought and memory to bodily functions like liver, kidney functions, basic digestive functions, etc. What I’m trying to get across here is that for the past several months, I’ve been working the off shift… the dreaded Grave shift. And, it has basically made me feel terrible. I’ve done it before and it’s been ok, but this time it really affected me.
I don’t know how many of you have experienced this, but I expect that many of you have. Grave shift hours, in my case the hours between 10pm and 6am, are difficult for most people to handle. This can be especially true when you have a family to interact with. I remember years ago, when I was single (and younger also), it didn’t bother me as much. But trying to work effectively, and take care of family issues as well and get enough rest in between isn’t easy.
So I have to say, this is part of the reason there hasn’t been much here lately.
Wiki has some interesting articles on the subject of the Biological clock and Circadian Rhythm. Also there is a good page on the effects of Shift Work. Check it out here: Circadian Rhythm and Shift Work
Now, back to our semi-regular posts. (hopefully, anyway).
Digg!
