Biological Rhythms
All plants and animals have endogeous cycles that, in response to an outside rhythm (zeitgeber), will cue various actions. For example, bears know they must hibernate, poinsettias know they must flower and humans know they need sleep. In correspondence with a particular season, length of day, and light intensity respectively, these events will occur. In the example with the poinsettia, the vegetative/flower cycle is synchronized with a day length cycle that has longer hours of darkness, resulting in a chemical reaction that releases florigen and signals to the poinsettia to flower. Similarly, a chemical reaction takes place in humans with their sleep/wake cycle. This will be discussed in the essay along with disorders associated with this cycle. Humans possess many biological clocks. Depending on the cycle it could be an infradian (longer than a day), ultradian (shorter than a day), circadian (about a day), or circannual (about a year) rhythm. In the case of the human’s internal sleep/wake cycle, it’s a circadian rhythm. The human sleep/wake cycle is a bit longer than 24 hours (closer to 25 hours), therefore it needs an entraining agent or zeitgeber. This is an external environmental rhythm whic
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Some common words found in the essay are:
SCN SCN, Biological Rhythms, sleep/wake cycle, outside environment, pineal gland, light/dark cycle, human sleep/wake cycle, sync outside environment, circadian rhythm, particular season, rhythm sync, sleepy alert, melatonin production, biological clock,
Approximate Word count = 1064
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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