How reforming the calendar can improve your health. Seriously.
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In the course of researching calendars, time, and culture, I’ve come across a number of resources that describe our bodies’ and brains’ relationship to the seasons. The bias tends towards those of us in the northern temperate zone, where the majority of the world’s population lives. It helps that the bulk of the earth’s landmass is there. The torrid zone between the tropics of cancer & capricorn are directly under the path of the sun through our skies twice a year, and see very little variance in daylight throughout the year, whereas at the poles there are long periods where the sun doesn’t rise, those when the sun doesn’t set. The rising in the east and setting in the west makes little sense there.
However, for the majority of us, in looking at what most of us share, have a responsibility to keep in mind the living circumstances of the various minorities, as they still make up a large number of people, cultures and customs.
from The Light Book (TLB) by Jane Wegscheider Hyman, Introducing Biological Rhythms (IBR) by Willard L Koukkari & Robert B Sothern, Space, Time and Medicine by Larry Dossey, M.D. (STM)
“Our bodies may begin measuring time before birth. In animals, and perhaps in humans, the fetus is first cued to the 24-hour cycle in the womb. Nutrients and hormones regularly cross the placenta and enter the bloodstream of the fetus. This flow from the mother, as well as her body temperature and activities, reflect her circadian rhythms, and the fetus cues its internal day according to hers.” – TLB
“Many illnesses, perhaps most, may be caused either wholly or in part by our misperception of time.” – STM
Regular Rhythms
“Researchers think that circadian rhythms are as old as life itself, enabling selected organisms to function in time to astronomical rhythms.”- TLB
“The normal development, reproduction, and activities of organisms are often dependent upon the duration and timing of light and dark spans, which in nature are associated with the seasons. This process is called photoperiodism, a complex and diverse process that is a basic principle of biology and is intrinsic in the temporal organization of life.” -IBR
Daily Rhythms (YMMV)
00h00 prolactin (growth hormone) increases
02h00 body temperature at its lowest, melatonin at its highest, cortisol increases
05h00 adrenaline, heart rate and blood pressure increase
04h00 – 12h00 inflow of blood
06h00 prolactin decreases, cortisol peaks, heart rate increases
09h00 melatonin decreases, noradrenaline increases
11h00 – 12h00 sympathetic nervous system activity, and body temp. increase
15h00 blood pressure peaks
16h00 body temp. decreases, melatonin increases
22h00 blood pressure and heart rate decrease
06h00 – 11h00 greatest use of carbohydrates
12h00 – maximal use of carbohydrates
13h00 – peak in food metabolism
08h00 – peak in male alcohol metabolism
15h00 – peak in female alcohol metabolism
Peak times for various functions:
10h00 – 12h00 concentration & short-term memory
13h00 – 18h00 sports, physical activity
17h00 – 21h00 practice, musical instrument
19h00 – 00h00 study & long-term memory
the eyes are most sensitive at twilight – dawn & dusk – at this time, the eyes calibrate the time of day with the season
Lunar Rhythms
“Overall, the quality of full moonlight appears to be quite close to that experienced just after sunset, a significant feature since photoreceptors of oscillators, such as the phytochromes, cryptochromes, and other pigments, depend not only upon the total energy of the visible spectrum, but rather upon the energy of specific wavelengths. Furthermore, it is the light present at dawn and dusk, not the changes in irradiance during day and night that organisms utilize for circadian photoentrainment.” – IBR
the following indicate increases of biological functions and activity near the moon phases.
skin cells rise to the surface of the skin over a 29-day cycle.
New Moon
- births (starting at last quarter)
- menstruation
- increased urine retention
- myocardial infarction (heart attack)
Full Moon
- meal intake increases, alcohol intake decreases
- ovulation
- psychopathology in schizophrenics
- aggressive behaviour
Seasonal Rhythms
Seasonal changes in cortisol, testosterone, thyroxine and serotonin affects health, mood, sleep and sexuality.
Winter
- metabolic rhythm, glucose and glycogen levels peak
- menarche (first menstruation)
- depression, chronic fatigue, eating disorders, seasonal affective disorder, sleep problems
Spring
- sexual activity (also in autumn)
- conception
- estrogen target cells
- heart responds better to exercise (also in summer)
- alcoholism
- mania & suicide
Summer
- heart responds better to exercise (also in spring)
- lungs take in more oxygen
- mania
Autumn
- sexual activity (also in Spring)
- testosterone peaks
Biological – Neurological
“The SCN [superchiasmatic neuclei] is called an oscillator or pacemaker because it sets the pace of the body’s various rhythms, keeping them coordinated with one another and with the Earth’s rotation.”- TLB
“The retino-hypothalamic tract through which light transmits its time signals to the brain is separate from the visual pathway.”- TLB
“The pineal gland secretes melatonin circadianly, which in turn regulates the body’s circadian rhythm.”- TLB
Temporal Ailments
“Light thus has the ability to ‘act like a drug’ and, as such, has become a public health issue. Areas possibly affected by changes in melatonin production include endocrine functions associated with puberty, psychiatric illness, stress-related disorders, immune responses and carcinogenesis.”- IBR
“While prior human exposure to artificial light at night came from sources such as flames of an orange red fire or the yellow light of candles, gas lamps or incandescent bulbs, today’s lights emit more blue light…”- IBR
Better lighting practices
- full-spectrum lighting during the daytime indoors
- non-blue lighting at night, indoor & outdoor
- night workers should wear orange lens glasses when outside in the AM (called Blue Blockers, they prevent MLT suppression)
“…our lives are so chronometrically dominated that we not only have become unconscious of the cycles in nature, we have become inured to the cycles within ourselves.” – STM
“We no longer eat when hungry or sleep when sleep, but follow the dictates of the clock.” – STM
“Through a distorted view of time we have patched together a mangled view of the universe.” – STM
Calendar Reform – a Solution
“Social Synchronization refers to a behavioral rhythm being regulated by an external source generated by another individual or some other social condition. It occurs not only in humans, but many other species, as well…” – IBR
Social synchronization is as varied as are our cultures. For example, in Taiwan, people are scheduled different weekends, for if the majority of people had the same two days off work, it would overwhelm the infrastructure. In a system such as this, people are in no small way synchronized according to which days serve as their workdays and weekdays. A more fundamental tool of synchronization is the 24-hour clock. It is far more universal than the calendar, despite the 24 time zones (there are more than that. Newfoundland is 1/2 hour aread of Atlantic time).
The various calendars do more to synchronize our activies, both with the local calendars in all their varieties as well as the globally used Gregorian. There are purely lunar calendars, the Islamic Hijra being the most widespread, that synchronize the populations according to the lunar cycle. Ramadan, for example, is an entire lunar month of fasting, and a fundamentally important observation in Islam. There are solilunar calendars, the Hebrew, Chinese, Hindu and Buddhist calendars for example, which tie lunar cycles to the year. Considering the populations that observe these, they are probably the most observed calendar systems outside of the Gregorian. These synchronize their users to the moon and the moon to the seasons. There are solar calendars, the Gregorian, Julian, Persian, Baha’i and others, that link their users to the annual cycle of the seasons. And finally, there are calendars that synchronize their users to man-made rhyths, such as the Pawukon used in Bali, Indonesia.
“…the flow of time is seen as a psychological event not representing a true feature of the physical world…” – STM
The Gregorian is the calendar to single out, as it is not tied to the day, and the year, but not to the lunar cycles, or the cardinal points (equinoxes & solstices), to any astronomical phenomena (perihelion & aphelion, planetary transits or other events). It is quite decidedly un-natural in its design. The 7-day market week may have originated with observation of the quarters of the lunar cycle, but now the months are no longer lunar, and the weeks do not synchronize with months or lunations in any meaningful way.
The Gregorian can be looked at as a misrepresentation of the natural cycles that we have used in measuring time since we’ve begun observing the skies, creating an irregular, distorted paradigm of time, unrelated to moon, season or even any cohesive idea of temporal cycles. theAbysmal Calendar has been designed to account for these distortions, to provide a paradigm of time that is regular, perpetual, progressive, elegant, and more globally representative.
Solutions offered by theAbysmal Calendar
- Follows the lunar month, called lunations
- The year begins at the Winter Solstice
- Days begin at midnight
- Lunations begin at the New Moon
- Quarters begin on or near the Solstices and Equinoxes
- Years begin at the Winter Solstice
Following a solilunar calendar will realign our social activity with the natural rhythms to which we are tied through our psyches and reproductive cycles. If the calendar is a representation of our understanding of time, why would we adhere to one that is removed from nature, irregular, distorted, and anachronistic?
What say you? Does such a shift hold some key to better health?
339 Days to Dec 21st 2012
Related articles
- Circadian Rhythm Disruption Causes Neurodegeneration, Early Death (medicalnewstoday.com)
- A Third Type of Cell In Your Retina Regulates Circadian Rhythm (brokensecrets.com)
- Time: A Consensus Rather Than a Fact. But Is It Unhealthy? (alternativendhealth.wordpress.com)
- Experts Believe Festive Break Could Cause Misaligned Circadian Rhythm (prweb.com)
Quarters begin on or near the Solstices and Equinoxes
