The concept of biological clocks refers to an innate mechanism that determines a body’s physiological activities. This mechanism is affected by the daily and seasonal cycles. When a person travels to a country in another time zone, he or she might face insomnia or feel sleepy during the daytime. That happens because the circadian rhythms, regulated by biological clocks, have not yet adapted for the time difference. I argue that it is possible to change our biological clocks.
The most explicit justification of the claim that human biological clocks could be altered is that before the invention of artificial lights, people went to bed and woke up much earlier than they do now. People use “artificial lights to delay our bedtime and window shades to extend our time for sleep” (Carlson & Birkett, 2021, p. 280). Consequently, the amount of light affects the operation of the biological clocks (Maiese, 2021). If a person wants to change the circadian rhythms and start waking up and going to bed earlier, he or she should change the duration of light-dark cycles (Çakmur, 2018; Salazar et al., 2018). One should minimize the amount of light in the evening and ensure enough light at the time of waking up. It is still possible to change biological clocks by regulating the amount of light. To control the normal functioning of the biological clocks, a person should use less artificial light at a dark time of the day and do not hide from light in the morning.
References
Çakmur, H. (2018). Circadian rhythm and chronobiology. In M. A. El-Esawi (Ed.) Circadian Rhythm-Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms. IntechOpen.
Carlson, N.R. & Birkett, M. A. (2021). Physiology of Behavior (13th ed.). Pearson.
Maiese, K. (2021). Neurodegeneration, memory loss, and dementia: the impact of biological clocks and circadian rhythm.Frontiers in Bioscience, 26(9), 614-627.
Salazar, E. R., Richter, H. G., Spichiger, C., Mendez, N., Halabi, D., Vergara, K., & Torres‐Farfan, C. (2018). Gestational chronodisruption leads to persistent changes in the rat fetal and adult adrenal clock and function.The Journal of Physiology, 596(23), 5839-5857. Web.