Why does the body naturally wake up around the same times every day without any prompting, even if it hasn’t been 8 hours?
In: Biology
It’s the external stimulus that sets you to 2 hours cycle. I remember reading an article long ago about an experiment. A guy with supplies were sent to live in a cave, isolated with no clock and nothing for many days. Eat when he’s hungry, sleep when he’s tired, etc. Over time he started having 30-hours cycle rather than traditional 24 hours.
You would have different time if you lived in rural area with telephone turned off, no traffic, no other people around, etc.
Nobody precisely knows.
It’s a popular research subject.
A Harvard study found that fasting for 16 hours followed by waking up and eating had a good chance of resetting your internal clock to think that meal was “breakfast”, and you’d start sleeping and waking up accordingly.
Why this happens is not clear, but it’s an experiment I’ve tried and it does tend to work.
Its your biological clock. You body always adapts itself to a routine. Just like everyday you feel hunger at same time or take shit at same time. If you sleep wake up cycle is drastically changed everyday, then you will feel tired and many more psychological defective behaviours. So it’s better to fix time for sleep – wake up.
Routine, or natural light, familiar sound (boiler, cars, neighbours leaving for work, bin lorries) you’ve trained your brain to listen whilst you sleep. It will even wake you up faster if it hears a faint siren.
ELI5 : it gets light or you hear things.
The official verdict is out on this one.
Theory 1 is routine. We get into a routine of waking and sleeping around the same time each day. Our body just rolls with it.
Theory 2 is environmental prompting we’re not entirely consciously aware of. Sounds and lights are cues we rely on heavily without realizing it.
Honestly I can see both. When I was working a 9-5, I had a fairly set routine of going to bed around 11 and waking around 7. Even on weekends I wanted to sleep in but for some reason I usually still woke up around 7 no matter when I went to sleep. Now that I’m not working my sleep has shifted a couple hours later but is still consistent.
The only time this changes is when my environment changes. When I’m backpacking I’m awake by 5 without setting an alarm. The forest is awake and the sun is awake so apparently it’s time for me to also be awake.
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