Discuss circadian rhythms

Discuss circadian rhythms

A circadian rhythm is a biological rhythm that lasts somewhere around 24 hours.

One example of the circadian rhythm is the sleep wake cycle. The main study into the sleep wake cycle was conducted by Michael Siffre. He went into a cave which excluded him from all extraneous variables which may affect his rhythms such as no light. These are also known as external cues. He simply ate and slept when he felt like it. He found that his sleep wake cycle stayed pretty the same, but it gained an hour so every few weeks he would be sleeping during the day. This shows that our circadian rhythms are mostly guided by internal cues but can be partly guided by external cues as his rhythms did shift a little bit. Another similar study was conducted by Folkard. His conducted an experiment in order to establish if external cues could override the internal clock. 12 participants lived in a cave for three weeks, isolated from light, and they agreed to wake up at 7.45am and sleep at 11.45pm…