We never quite realize what finely tuned machines our bodies are until we do something to throw them off, like stay up all night or fly into a different time zone. It seems like our bodies should easily adapt to whatever situation we put them in, but our individual circadian rhythms—the ways our bodies function throughout a 24-hour period—say otherwise.
Circadian rhythms are ruled by body clocks that dictate whether we’re alert, sleepy, hungry, etc., and those clocks are affected by our environment. The first sign of light sends messages to our bodies to start the arousal process and the setting sun signals the production of melatonin to prepare us for sleep. When we work against our body clocks, we feel the ill effects—insomnia, lethargy, irritability. In order to perform optimally, we need to work with our circadian rhythms rather than against them. This is the idea behind chronotherapy, a new form of treatment being investigated in the medical community.
How Chronotherapy Works
Chronotherapy is an offshoot of chronobiology, the science of examining body clocks and their resulting biological rhythms and physiological responses. Drug chronotherapy uses a person’s circadian rhythms to figure out the best time to administer medication and how much to give the person. Proponents of this treatment believe that our biological cycles include certain points throughout a 24-hour day that allow medicine to have the most beneficial effect while minimizing possible negative side effects. This is quite different from the usual prescription of “once in the morning, once at night” given by many doctors.
Chronotherapy tries to find the time of day when medication will be most useful. After all, our circadian rhythms fluctuate throughout the day, and no two people’s rhythms are quite the same. Therefore, it makes sense that treatment should be more individualized, and by analyzing the inner workings of our body clocks, that is what chronotherapy attempts to achieve.
What It Can Treat
Knowledge and familiarity with chronotherapy is emerging within the medical field. It is being investigated for illnesses like asthma, hypertension, some forms of cancer, and sleep disorders.
