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Avoid Burnout and Increase Awareness Using Ultradian Rhythms
Circadian rhythms’ lesser know cousins may hold the key to a more fruitful day
The Cycles of our Nature
…every organism — from paramecium to pachyderm — is born, lives out its days, and dies influenced by a complex web of rhythms interwoven in time.” — Ernest Rossi, The 20-Minute Break
Science has discovered a number of biological rhythms that play out in our lives on scales both large and small. This field of study is called chronobiology, underscoring the intricate relationship between our biological rhythms and time itself.
By understanding how these internal rhythms operate, we can learn to use them to our advantage.
Many people are probably familiar with circadian rhythms. These are biological rhythms that play out over about 24 hours and are informed by the Earth’s rotation around the Sun. These form the broad structure of our individual days; the most obvious example of a circadian rhythm is the sleep-wake cycle, where we are alert and awake part of the day, and then move toward drowsiness and eventually sleep later in the day.
But circadian rhythms have lesser known cousins that can help us optimize our internal body clocks for maximum…
