From the sun that stirs us from slumber, to the moon that stirs the tides of our emotions, nature holds sway over the rhythm of our lives. And yet, the desire to change is firmly woven into our nature too. Life, then, is the art of learning to dance to these shifting dynamics.
Circadian rhythm is the term given to the automatic ability we have to form patterns that govern our daily lives, such as how our bodies wake up without the help of an alarm. All life forms have this quality, even the sea.
Unlike the sea, we humans have places to go and our environment changes, so while the sea may maintain its waves and tides without interruption of a modern-day emergency, we can’t. Fortunately, circadian rhythms can be altered as they respond to the environment one is in.
Life was simpler back in the old days, when your daily routine was directed by the sun and of course your gender. Today our daily routines are dictated by location, age, gender, school, work, gym, all of which can change and sometimes without warning.
I, for instance, took a year off to further my education. My day started off at half three in the morning because I had to be at work by half five, and by two in the afternoon I would be on my way home.
It’s been four months since I stopped going to work, but I still wake up at this time and cannot go back to sleep. When I worked I would have my first meal by six, just when other people are waking up. I sometimes still eat at this time even when I have nowhere to go.
Sometimes we stop because we cannot go on. Our rhythms, which we have maintained for the longest time, changes because of death. Grief disturbs our automatic function and makes us question our cycle. When someone becomes absent in your life forever it makes you look at your patterns and suddenly you realise there will be plot holes in the plot of your daily life.
I used to call my family members every Sunday to catch up on their week’s happenings. My father was one of those people, but he passed on, and because of this one important member falling away, the tradition of calling fell with it.
I have moved a few times and with every move I have had to join a new gym. This disturbed my routine because each gym is mapped out differently, so I had to reconstruct my workout plans to fit the gym equipment and spatial planning.
I am at the point where I am thinking of quitting gym to jog in the morning. Surely this simple routine cannot be disturbed, except for the weather: I have to preplan my route, calculate the distance, set an alarm, check the forecast…so the impossibility of a perfect routine is a stark reality.
We are all caught in the rat race because there is no other race to run. Each of us getting in our cars, on the train or on the bus have our own unique rhythms and routines. Each of us have had bad mornings and each of us have had wonderful evenings where the sun mesmerised us. The sun whose patterns have not changed since the beginning of time.
Life is an automatic function, set into motion by a master horologist, and so when I’m up at three in the morning, frustrated at my circadian rhythm for waking me up, I remind myself to calm down and listen to the birds as they start their day, wondering when sleep like the tide will come in and when six will strike so I can eat.
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