Sleep And Wake Up Process Is Controlled Through Circadian And Homeostatic Processes

Circadian rhythm is the mechanism through which our body regulates its sleep and wake up hours. The 24 hour light and dark cycle is the fundamental nature of the Earth. It always has powerful influence on animals and humans and it controls their psychological and biological behavior. In addition to the perception of images, light plays an important role in controlling our sleep mechanism. Melatonin which is the chemical responsible to create sleep cannot be activated in the absence of light. There are mounting evidence to show that light has deep impacts on our sleeping cycle and the homeostatic response to sleep loss, depend on both melanopsin and circadian time.

Circadian Process Is Regulated By Many Different Processes

Sleep is often regulated by the homeostatic and circadian processes. The main function of the homeostatic is to determine the duration of time we have been awake whereas circadian process determines how much time we have spent sleeping. Both processes significantly control the duration of sleep and they relatively contribute to two major types of sleep processes that are non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement.  The phase shifting pattern of light is clearly a non-image forming of the light and it plays a vital role in temporal organization of behavior in both animals and humans.

Understand Your Biological Clock Functions

Our biological clock is not made up of some machinery or cogs and wheels rather it is made up of group of molecules in cells. There is a master clock that is located in our brain and it keeps on synchronizing with the event of day and night. It is driven by internal factors which consist of numerous genes and proteins. There is a metabolic protein often known as SIRT1, it senses energy that has been captured by cells. It is responsible for controlling our circadian rhythm sleep cycle. Any damage or any type of unsynchronized behavior causes sleep disorder and increased hunger.

Different Time Zone Travels Often Creates Repetitive Reset of Biological Clock

Jet lag is the most common type of circadian rhythm sleep disorder.  When you pass through multiple time zones your body’s biological clock often gets confused and depriving you from sleep at the normal hours. Losing or gaining time during flight travel may leave your body clock perplexed. Eventually your body starts adjusting with the normal time schedule but as you fly again to some other time zone this mechanism is again disrupted and frequency of this hampers your circadian rhythm. It simply resets quite a number of times which makes it unsynchronized and then you might suffer with sleep disorder.

Understand The Importance Of Sleep And Knowledge Yourself About Sleep Disorders

In order to cope with your circadian rhythm sleep disorder, you should first understand its implications on your life. There isn’t any perfect cure for this sleep disorder but proper sleep hygiene may help you to rule it out permanently. However, this process takes time and you should have immense patience to achieve it. So if you are feeling depressed and not able to get sleep at proper time, it’s always a better to choice to consult your doctor about it. There may be many myths about it prevailing in the society but if you are able to get its information on first hand, the more quickly you will be able to overcome it.