Are you sleepy This strange battle is the reason

Our bodies are torn into two halves, depending on the battle between the biological clock and the social clock. And that's why you're sleepy.

In your head, somewhere between the eyes there is an extremely small brain area. It contains only about 20,000 cells (in total . 100 billion of the whole brain). However, small is "martial" , because this brain region can interfere with almost . everything in the body: hormones, internal organs, cognitive processing, and the whole sleep cycle.

That part is multiplied on the cross - suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) , but for ordinary people, we know it by another name: the biological clock.

In one of his books, Professor Till Roenneberg from Ludwig Maximilians University Medical Institute (Munich, Germany) presented a discovery about this watch. Accordingly, the body's biological clock is closely related to light from the Sun.

The body's biological clock is closely related to light from the Sun.

Roenneberg tested this by confining some people in the dark cellar, without any light. The results show that their biological clock gradually changes: they imagine a longer day, stay longer, and sleep longer.

However, it is interesting that blind people also experience this phenomenon if they are locked up in the dark, because even if nothing is seen, the eyeball sends information about the light to the brain. Only when the victim no longer has eyes, their concept of time is lost.

Biological clock and social clock

We understand that everyone has a biological clock, and it operates under the sunlight. But Roenneberg points out a reality in the modern world, we have another watch to follow. It is worn on the hand, mounted on the wall, placed on the phone . or a lot of other things and determines the time we have to wake up, move, work.

We wake up and work according to the so-called "social watches".

It is a social watch - according to Roenneberg's call , and it seems that winning the battle between the two types belongs to it. But more importantly, Roenneberg warned that the whole world depended on the social watch that is putting humanity at risk.

Perhaps you've heard the term "jet lag" - referring to the body's fatigue due to the time difference after long flights.

And with Roenneberg, every day people face the same disparity, between social watches and what the body really wants. He calls it "social jet lag".

Victims of "social jet lag" tend to smoke more, drink more alcohol, and always crave caffeine. At the same time, their bodies are at high risk of imbalance of hormones, emotions are easy to change, and more difficult to concentrate. That is not to mention the risk of obesity.

"If you are a bit overweight, it may be because of a life contrary to the biological clock," Roenneberg said. And in fact, "two-thirds of the population is waking up in the middle of a real human sleep cycle."

How active the world today is making many of us awake very late, and of course this is not good. The clock in the brain wants you to sleep late, get up late, but the social clock doesn't allow it. Depending on the nature of the job, you must be present at work before 8am, ie wake up and get ready from 6am. As a result, your real time zone is deviated.

We are witnessing jet lag every day without having to go far.

According to Roenneberg, we are seeing jet lag happen every day without going anywhere. From the moment you wake up, your time zone has been misaligned. And so jet lag continues, from home to work, and it leaves serious consequences for the economy.

"Social watches require real productivity, biological clocks are still looking for warm blankets and soft mattresses, and we are forced to seek balance between them."

Bad consequences from time zone difference

In Internal Time - another book by Roenneberg, he mentioned the consequences that occur when your time zone is not compatible with the body.

The first is tiredness, then decreased concentration, cognitive ability, and motor skills. Next, the digestive hormone is deflected, then the internal organs are incomplete, leading to the whole system being deflected.

In fact, humans have never known the time difference phenomenon until the plane (jet) was invented. We don't even know what time zone is before creating a train.

The biological clock no longer receives the same clear signals.

In the past, if sailing along the Atlantic coast, the biological clock would have time to adjust. When there is a clock, the time is set according to the Sun. But when traveling by train in countries like the US, you will have to reset the clock continuously.

So in 1884, the concept of new time zones was born, in which the Earth was divided into 24 different time zones. But since then, the relationship between the people and the Sun has become weaker.

People are increasingly "different time zones"

Human sleep is getting shorter and shorter, and that may be an advantage to make money in this era. The problem is that, along with it, we wake up very late and wake up very early - of course disturbing the biological clock and making the "social time zone" increasingly misleading.

But why? According to Roenneberg, it is a consequence of modern technology. We spend the whole day in the office, exposed to something weaker than the Sun. At night, I still sit in the room, under a light much stronger than the moonlight. That difference, in many respects, is great.

The biological clock no longer receives the same clear signals. While really for the operation of the body, those wall clocks don't make much sense. And that is the reason why the time zone difference is growing between the body and society.

Not getting enough sleep causes horrible consequences for the body.

Conclusion

What is the problem here? Roenneberg said, we really need to find ways to respect our biological clock. Our bodies can learn how to adapt, but it needs to be assured of sleep time.

For Roenneberg, the ideal number of sleeps is 8 hours a night, and you have to be in any way that is enough. The eyepatch can be used to prevent artificial light, or to remove work, technology before deciding to close your eyes.