Body Time: The Natural Rhythms of The Body

by Gay Gaer Luce

Body Time
What time is it by your body?

Men as well as women are affected by mood and energy changes corresponding to the lunar month. People living in the Arctic have a marked tendency towards emotional disorders during the long, sunless winters. Memory, creativity and 'intelligence' vary with the time of day and over the course of the year. Sleep has natural rhythm composed of periods of dreaming, near-waking and deep slumber, and subjects deprived of one of these essential stages show signs of depression, irritability, or anxiety.

A host of biological rhythms - operating like internal clocks - influence our feelings and performance, making sense of some kinds of behavior formerly thought to be 'unpredictable'. Gay Gaer Luce clearly and simply explains the significance of mass of experimental research which should have wide reverberations on the practice of medicine, and on how we organize our lives.

330 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Sepideh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book was published nearly 50 years ago (1971), it contains a lot of research I was astonished to read and likely wouldn’t have otherwise picked up on. That 24.2-hour timer has a much broader impact on disease and health than we think, and it deserves a good few minutes in the spotlight.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the first popular studies reporting on the effects of shift working, jet travel, and other assaults on our internal body clocks. A tendency to make the recommendations sound like the answer to everything, but a useful book in its time.