Scientific evidences show that our cells knew how to tell the time long before we did. Every cell in our bodies has its very own clock. Unlike the clocks we are used to, the clocks in our cells have no cogs or tools: they are biological. Our biological clocks keep near perfect time with the 24-hour cycle of light and dark on Earth. We call this normal day-to-day cycle the circadian rhythm. The word circadian originates from the Latin circa and dies, signifying “around the day.” The circadian rhythm or biological clock aligns our sleep-wake cycle with the light-dark cycle, so that we feel awake in the day and sleepy during the night. It gets the gut prepared for food digestion during the day however assists us not to feel hungry when we are asleep during the night. It establishes when we are most alert (mid-morning), when we are most coordinated (early afternoon) and when we have the most muscle strength (late afternoon). Body temperature and blood pressure likewise increase and decrease throughout the day. Even our body immune systems operate on a 24-hour schedule, directed by the circadian rhythm.
Circadian rhythms are not distinct to human beings: practically every organism in the world has a biological clock. Plants’ clocks trigger their leaves to open throughout the day and close during the night. The clocks of nighttime animals promote activity at night and sleep throughout the day. By tracking modifications in the length of sunlight, plants and animals can follow a yearly rhythm and also a daily one. From flowers blooming in spring to Monarch butterflies migrating prior to winter season, biological clocks are responsible. Except for in the darkest caverns and deepest oceans, where direct sunlight never ever reaches, all life on our world remains in sync with the rotation of the Earth. The circadian clocks in plants and animals are much more sophisticated than those in man-made systems.
Our biological clocks differ from any clock that we could read. The cogs of the clocks are proteins. Clock proteins are produced and broken down in a cycle that lasts 24 hours. This cycle ticks away in every cell in the body, indicating that each cell has its own clock. However how do all of these different small clocks remain in time with each other? They are coordinated by a main, grandfather clock in the brain, which is called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN for short). The SCN harmonizes all of our cellular clocks with the Earth’s rotation. How does it perform this challenging job? Making use of sunlight!
Not even electronic gadgets display this level of powerful complexity, with many circadian clocks interacting throughout networks of tissues as well as within the very same tissue. This level of interconnectivity and intricacy is fundamentally impossible for people to understand and decipher.
Are we messing up our clocks? Since the beginning of time, GOD created the Sun and the Moon to guide us.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights– the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning; the fourth day. – Genesis 1:14 -19
With the creation of artificial light, we can extend daytime activities into the night. It produces a 24-hour culture, with restaurants and stores open throughout the night. We can do nearly any activity, from reading to driving, at any hour of the day. This can result in their biological clocks to get confused, and after that all the things that depend upon their clocks will likewise get confused, including sleep.
Even more, with our digital device culture, this adds a newer enemy to our circadian rhythms. LED screens. phones, computers and TVs have LED screens, which emit a substantial amount of blue light. Blue is the color of light that ipRGCs are best at sensing. When this blue light originates from the sun it is a beneficial thing – our brains get the signal from ipRGCs, “it is daytime, keep awake.” The SCN reacts by inhibiting the production of a hormonal agent that makes us sleepy, called melatonin. When the sun sets, there is no more natural blue light around, therefore melatonin is produced, and we end up being sleepy.
Only a masterful, supreme Engineer might have put such a great and coordinated system as this into place– not simply once but in thousands of distinctively created kinds of plants and animals. The more we recognize about the genes of living things, the more glory we must give GOD.
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