biological rhythms

• define biological rhythms?

  • cyclical patterns within biological systems that have evolved in response to environmental influences (e.g day and night )
  • induced by endogenous pacemakers and exogenous pacemakers
• what is an endogenous pacemaker?

  • internal body clocks that regulate many of our biological rhythms
• what is an exogenous zitegeber?

  • external environment cues that affect or 'entrain' our endogenous biological rhythms
• what's a free running biological rhythm?

  • biological rhythm that works without any external cues and is run by endogenous biological clock
• what's a focused biological rhythm?

  • free running biological rhythm that has been entrained by external cues
• define entrainment?

  • the process by which endogenous biological clock is reset by exogenous zeitgebers such as light, temperature or noise.
• What is an ultradian rhythm?

  Biological rhythms that last fewer than24 hours

  they can be found in the sleep cycle
• what re the sleep stages?

  • stages 1,2= light sleep, the brain waves are alpha and theta
  • stages 3,4= deep sleep, the brain waves are are slower delta waves
  • stage 5= REM (dream sleep) brainwaves become much slower. breathing is rapid and shallow
• evaluate ultradian rhythms

  • individual differences- Tucker found individual differences between peoples sleep cycle durations.
  • controlled factors ensures that the sleep cycles/patterns isn’t due to situational factors , and solely biological
  • lab studies for sleep can be quite unreliable as people tend to sleep differently in labs compared to at home.
• Disruption to biological rhythms

  Sleep deprivation
• Disruption to biological rhythms

  Heart disease
• Disruption to biological rhythms

  Social consequences
• Shift workers find spending time with loves ones difficult and this therefore effects their social life
• Researchers can use the findings to improve the health of shift workers and improve productivity