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 The vital activity of the body is largely determined by biorhythms, which, reporting to each other, affect the well-being of a person, up to his labor, intellectual capabilities. Internal biorhythms include, for example, the rhythms of breathing and heartbeat.
External biorhythms are associated with the position of the planet Earth in outer space, for example, with the cyclical nature of solar activity (11.5 years), annual, monthly, daily and more short-term processes in nature.
Let us dwell on the daily biorhythm, which, like all adaptive systems of the body, has evolved in the process of evolution to ensure maximum human vitality. The "metronome" of this biorhythm is the hypothalamus - a part of the brain that regulates many hormonal processes.
At present, the diurnal biorhythm of the sympathetic-adrenal system has been studied in detail. What is its essence?
The most simplified scheme, according to our data, looks like this: maximum activity (increase in adrenaline release) in the morning (8-12 hours), minimum - in the middle of the day (12-16 hours), the second maximum - in the evening (16-22 hours) and the most pronounced minimum is at night (22-8 hours).
Accordingly, the level of life processes fluctuates: we are most active and efficient in the morning, then in the second half of the day there is a decline, in the evening again a certain rise and a sharp decline at night.
Our distant and not very distant ancestors lived in strict accordance with the requirements of the daily biorhythm, not only because they determined the time according to the Sun, but also because they knew from experience: the most controversial work - in the morning: "Whoever gets up early, God gives him"... And they went to bed early, not for the sake of saving a torch, but first of all to get a good sleep. After lunch, they were not averse to nap, because you can't work much on a full stomach, and you might not have enough strength until the end of the working day. This was dictated by nature, the needs of the body and the need for great labor output.
 Much has changed these days: both the way of life and the nature of work. But the natural biorhythm has remained the same, because evolutionary changes do not keep pace with scientific and social progress. The now widespread habit of some people to stay up late and wake up late developed against natural needs. As a result, there are frequent breakdowns of adaptive mechanisms, fraught with the danger of neurotic disorders. Our research does not confirm the genetic predisposition of people to the regimes of the so-called "Owls" and "Larks"... A healthy person is evolutionarily assigned a single biorhythm, synchronous with nature, and any departure from it is undesirable for a person.
Numerous studies indicate that systematic night work leads to a failure of the daily biorhythm, activation of the sympathetic-adrenal system, and it is restored to normal in at least two days. Labor legislation takes this circumstance into account by providing night shift workers with the necessary time to rest AND the mandatory (after a week) alternation of night and day shifts.
A sharp mismatch between the body's biorhythms and the daily biorhythm occurs when a person is in a different time zone. Life support processes in this case adapt to new conditions not simultaneously, but gradually. Desynchrosis with a shift of 12 hours lasts an average of 10-15 days. When moving from the middle zone to the regions of the North and Antarctica, it takes from one and a half months to one and a half years to synchronize the rhythms. In a state of desynchrosis, a person's working capacity is reduced.In this regard, athletes, for example, are advised to arrive at the venue in advance in order to have time to adapt.
The problem of desynchrosis is especially relevant for pilots. Young people who are less experienced in this regard, when they find themselves in new conditions, tend to immediately switch to a new routine. And after 2-3 days, returning home, they again "break" the biorhythms. The pilots of the older generations have learned to avoid desynchrosis with its negative consequences. After the transatlantic flight, they follow their usual sleep-wake schedule. In addition, they seek to quickly abandoned the intermediate airport. This ensures professional longevity.
The correct lifestyle with the implementation of specific recommendations for certain professions and types of work will always help neutralize the inevitable disruptions in biorhythms. This will be discussed later.
It has long been known that the daily change of sleep and wakefulness is also the result of a long evolution. Scientists are constantly studying this rhythmic process, but still a lot remains unclear in it. Sleep is a very important phenomenon in the life of an organism. As a result of the works of the American scientists V. Aizerinsky and N. Kleitman, it was revealed that sleep has a very complex structure. It consists of periods "Slow" and "Fast" sleep, replacing each other many times. Over the next 30 years of research by many scientists around the world, it became clear that sleep is by no means the rest of the brain, but a special kind of its activity.
"Slow" sleep, in turn, is divided into several stages: 1 - drowsiness, 2 - superficial sleep, 3 and 4 - the deepest phases of sleep. In general, "slow" sleep is characterized by a decrease in muscle tone, even and infrequent breathing and pulse, lack of eye movements, a decrease in the content of adrenaline and norepinephrine in the blood and urine, and an increase in the content of growth hormone. A person who is awakened during "slow" sleep, as a rule, does not recall any dreams.
"REM" sleep is close to the state of active wakefulness. At this time, cerebral blood flow increases, at times rapid movements of the eyeballs are observed with closed eyelids, individual muscle groups twitch, heart rate and respiration rates change, blood pressure rises and falls, etc. When awakening from the REM sleep phase, a person talks about vivid, emotionally rich dreams.
All night sleep consists of 4-5 cycles, each of which includes stages "Fast" and "Slow" sleep.
 In the scientific literature for some time there was an opinion that during sleep, the functions of the sympathetic-adrenal system are transferred to other systems (serotonin-histamine, corticosteroid, etc.). Recent studies have shown otherwise: the sympathetic-adrenal system is in an active state during sleep. There was a slight increase in the release of adrenaline in the "fast" phase of sleep, as well as the fact that restless nights, after which the subjects complained of poor sleep, unpleasant dreams and headache, were characterized by an increased release of catecholamines. Moreover, the predominance of one or the other of them determined the nature of dreams. The increased adrenaline rush corresponded to disturbing dreams with the experience of danger, fear, horror, when life seemed to hang in the balance; but there is no strength to run away, to fight back, to slam the door. And the person wakes up in a cold sweat with a rapid heartbeat. An increased release of norepinephrine is associated with obsessive dreams, that is, repeated in content and structure, sometimes accompanied by oppressive experiences.
Very often, after sleep, a person does not feel sufficiently rested. Why? Many theories are trying to answer this question. The so-called informative theory seems to us the most realistic, according to which a person in a dream processes the information received during the period of active wakefulness.Therefore, sleep performs not only passive-restorative, but also active-cognitive function. People of mental labor, creative workers are not able to turn off the mechanism of processing and comprehending information at night, Scientists, managers, writers work not 8 or 12 hours a day, but almost constantly with short-term Switchings. This is what the adrenograms reflect,
It is known that composers often compose music in their sleep, scientists make discoveries, engineers find the most successful solution to production problems. In all such situations, people process in a dream the current information, the one that persistently occupied and worried them. And if a person does not have such concerns?
Experiments were carried out when the subjects were placed in extremely comfortable conditions without stress and information flow. It would seem that they will only have beautiful dreams. Alas, their nights turned out to be alarming too ... Information theory suggests that in this case a person, for lack of fresh information, was processing older information that was stored in his memory.
In the development of the information theory of sleep, the Soviet researcher V.S.Rotenberg and his co-workers developed the so-called search-adaptation theory. Search activity, which plays an important role in adaptation processes, is understood as activity aimed at changing the life situation, the forecast of which is unclear.
In animals, such activity is associated with a way out of danger: either run away, or grapple with the enemy, or hide. A person is looking for solutions to important life problems for him. The more adventurous he is, the better he adapts to the environment. Refusal of search activity can lead to a breakdown of adaptation mechanisms with severe neurotic disorders. If a person, having found himself in a difficult situation, is looking for a way out of it, he will find this or that (albeit compensatory) solution, while maintaining his health. Anyone who lowered his hands, abandoned an active search, is in danger of a severe depression, the consciousness of his brokenness, depression ...
A similar situation arises for a person who led a busy working life, made responsible decisions, and then, after retiring, did not find the use of his energy. Moving aimlessly between the kitchen and the TV, he suddenly lost his usual pace and rhythm of his life. In the clinic of neurosis, such patients are called "mimosas", because they give in to the smallest difficulties.
 According to the search-adaptation theory, "REM" sleep is associated with the presence or absence of search activity: the higher it is, the less the need for REM sleep, with low search activity, the higher the need for "REM" sleep. Consequently, the phase of "REM" sleep to a certain extent compensates for the lack of search activity during wakefulness.
Sleep performs not only active-passive and cognitive functions, but also restorative ones. Its complex structure provides the replenishment of the body's defenses expended during the day. For comparison, let us liken our organism to a fortress, which is "bombarded" by stresses, causing significant damage to it. At night, during sleep, a painstaking, brick by brick, restoration of the body's defenses takes place. These “building blocks” are, along with other factors, the reserves of dopamine and norepinephrine. Their maximum amount in urine is detected by 6 am and reflects the accumulation of reserve reserves of the body: after all, adrenaline is formed from them according to the already known scheme - the hormone of action, vital activity.
Very often it happens like this: a person thinks that he is sleeping fully, but complains of a difficult awakening, heaviness in the head, and low efficiency in the morning. Analysis of adrenograms shows that this person sleeps in shallow restless sleep, during which the level of adrenaline release does not decrease, and a sufficient supply of dopamine and norepinephrine does not accumulate.We will talk about ways of providing assistance in such cases.
Now let's dwell on seasonal biorhythms and their sympathetic-adrenal manifestations. These biorhythms are associated with such meteorological phenomena in nature as atmospheric pressure, air temperature and humidity, the amount of oxygen, the mode of electromagnetic oscillations of the atmosphere, cosmic radiation, etc. In connection with the change of seasons, a deficiency of various natural natural factors - light, ultraviolet rays etc. All these fluctuations affect the state of the human body, in particular, metabolic processes, blood pressure, the activity of the endocrine glands, psyche, performance.
Modern medicine knows the relationship between the frequency of myocardial infarctions and strokes with seasonal factors: most of these disasters are in autumn, early winter and spring. In the evening, neurotic disorders of the so-called hypothalamic (diencephalic) syndrome, associated with dysfunction of the hypothalamus, increase.
But how do seasonal factors affect the adaptive systems of the body, in particular the sympathetic-adrenal one?
To answer this question, we studied the change in the activity of the sympathetic-adrenal system during the year in a team of junior swimmers. By the spring, athletes' sports results were noticeably decreasing, despite all the efforts of the coaches. Adrenograms show a decrease in the activity of the sympathetic-adrenal system due to the depletion of its reserves (DOPA and dopamine). A two-month summer vacation provided an increase in sports results against the background of an increase in the activity of the sympathetic-adrenal system.
A seasonal decrease in the activity of the sympathetic-adrenal system and a deterioration in working capacity in spring were found in almost all workers associated with neuro-emotional overstrain (railroad workers, pilots, shift workers, etc.).
V.N.Vasiliev - Health and stress
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