The Circadian Cycle And The Importance Of Sleep

THE CIRCADIAN CYCLE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP

As a starting point, all living beings from the timid unicellular organism to the human being itself have an internal biological clock called circadian cycle, which is directly synchronized with the periodic changes of our environment such as day and night or the seasons of the year. The dream is undoubtedly one of the most significant and basic physiological conditions of every living being and like other organic functions such as vigil and appetite, it fulfills and is regulated by a circadian cycle; that is, it has a biological rhythm of approximately 24 hours.

From the anatomical point of view, this magical biological clock governs mentioned processes, is located at the brain level at the base of the hypothalamus, in a small region made up of thousands of neurons called supraquiasmatic nucleus NSQ. The activity that these neurons perform together, facilitates them to synchronize day by day with external signals to activate the clock, put it in phase and manifest the cycles with the signals of the environment, within which the most import and the one that contributes the most are the Light-dark cycles; However, other aspects such as temperature, social relationships, lifestyle, food, exercise, among others, also serve as synchronizers for this type of cycles.

On the other hand, all these neuronal cyclic processes in turn depends on genetic factors that dictate different biological rhythms in each person and are present not only in the physiological affairs of the individual, but also at the behavioral level, since there will be hours hours of the day the person feels more active, receptive and with greater learning capacity unlike others; Similarly, they act at the biochemical level due to the presence of blood hormones that also have some circadian criticality about all those that have to do with metabolic processes such as those related to glucose, melatonin, somatotropin and cortisol .

Unfortunately, this is such a daily and normal event that sometimes all the repercussions it has is not taken into account; However, in each of our cells there is a complete molecular machinery that prepares and anticipates each situation.

In conclusion, society has forced us to adjust to certain behavior patterns that have caused an interruption and deincronization of this wonderful governing apparatus. It is necessary to be aware that sleep is a serious matter of health, illness and even death, sleep is a way of detoxifying our brain; If there is still a mismatch between our way of life and our biological clock, this would cause severe and risky conditions that weaken and prevent a complete state of physical-mental health.