#Rhythm March 12

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My granddaughter loves to tinker with anything around our home. Three weeks ago she discovered that we owned a mechanical mantle clock. We never wind the clock up. Her curiosity eventually led to her discovering the key that gives the clock its power.

I told her that the key was used to keep the clock in RHYTHM.

She insisted on winding the clock up and started informing me “Pops I made it go tick tock”. She kept repeating that phrase in perfect RHYTHM to the clock. Shortly after winding it up she also discovered another RHYTHMATIC gem. Her surprise was that ever fifteen minutes the clock would chime. It chimed at 15, 30, and 45 minutes after the hour. At the top of the hour it chimed to match the time of the day. So 12 o’clock midnight meant twelve chimes.

My wife and I soon realized that teaching grandchildren new things often comes with a price. The mantle clock broke the usually nighttime quiet of our house. The constant chiming every fifteen minutes got my wife and I out of our normally sleep RHYTHM. In frustration the mantle clock got moved far away from our bedroom, and placed under an arm chair behind a closed door. We were trying to recapture our sleep RHYTHM and the clock’s RHYTHM was not helping.

The mantle clock episode reminded both of us that our circadian RHYTHM — a.k.a., our “internal clock” was much stronger than our granddaughter’s fascination with her new wind up toy.

An article in Beachbody On Demand on the importance of RHYTHM included this quote:

The circadian rhythm oversees and regulates other bodily functions and hormones, like our appetite, meal timing, and digestion, as well as the release of cortisol (our main stress hormone), insulin (the hormone that helps regulate blood sugar) and even our sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone and DHEA,” 

Our biological RHYTHMS include physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle.

If you want to learn more about your “Master Clock” and how Circadian RHYTHM impacts it take a look at this TED Talk by Emily Manoogian.