Sleep Patterns

Words: 1718
Pages: 7

Sleep patterns can drastically affect your health in such ways as increased cancer risk and increased heart disease risk. Your sleep patterns are controlled by rhythms that last roughly 24 hours. Research has proven when these rhythms are influenced you can develop many types of sleep disorders and other serious diseases. Disturbances in your circadian clock, 24 hours rhythms, are both caused by internal and external factors, which lead to many types of irregularities in the body's normal function. Their is a master clock located in our brains. It is located in a portion of the brain called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus, often referred to in short as the SCN. This master clock is directly related to the timing of the body rhythms such as hormones …show more content…
Chronobiology is defined as the study of physiological cycles and rhythms that occur in living organisms, as stated on chronobiology.com. Another rhythm that is closely related to circadian rhythms is called biological rhythms. Biological rhythms are rhythms, but they are not circadian rhythms. Biological rhythms control physiological activities that change from daily to yearly to seasonally. They also include any other physiological activities that rotate on any other regular cycle. The biological clocks that control these rhythms and also circadian rhythms. Biological clocks are controlled by the master clock that is located in the SCN. Biological clocks are found in groupings of interacting molecules all over the body. Their are is even clocks called circadian clocks. These clocks are in nearly every cell in the body. They control the flow of hormones which in turn sends different signals to the body. They also regulate the body's response to sugar. Although circadian clocks and circadian rhythm sound the same they are not the same thing. Circadian rhythms are the cycles that circadian clocks follow and at certain times, such as sleep, these clocks trigger for different hormones to be released to follow these rhythms. These rhythms and clocks have developed over many years. The history and origin at these are not 100% …show more content…
One view is that they were in some of the earliest cells. They believe that they were in those cells for the purpose of protecting the process of DNA replication within the cell. During certain hours of the day high levels of ultraviolet radiation could damage the DNA. The circadian clock kept up with these times and signaled for the replication at such times as dark. As a main piece of supporting evidence they point to the fact that some of the same proteins that drive our circadian clocks/rhythms are also involved in repairing DNA. Another view is that all the clocks now came from one original mother clock. They believe that this clock may have shielded the cell,or cells, from oxygen damage. They also think that this clock may have provided other unknown advantages. Whether internal or external may factors can influence your circadian rhythms. These influences can cause many types of