About Biorhythms
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What is Biorhythms?

Biorhythms are inherent cycles which regulate memory, ambition, coordination, endurance, temperament, emotions, and much more. We each have three fundamental biorhythm cycles. Each biorhythm cycle has a particular function, and a particular life cycle.

Our physical biorhythm cycle completes one life cycle in 23 days. Our emotional biorhythm cycle lasts 28 days, and our intellectual biorhythm cycle lasts 33 days. At mid point and end point in each cycle, they sharply move back to zero point and change polarity. The day a cycle changes polarity is called a transition day (also called a critical day, or caution day).

Transition days are the days when we may feel a little off, or have a downright bad day. A double transition day is when two of your cycles transition on the same day. This day may be difficult. A triple transition day is when three of your cycles transition on the same day. Triple transition days are rare, occurring once every 7-8 years.

Physical Cycle - 23 days The physical cycle is said to be the dominant cycle in men. It regulates hand-eye coordination, strength, endurance, sex drive, stamina, initiative, metabolic rate, resistance to, and recovery from illness. Surgery should be avoided on physical transition days and during negative physical cycles.

Emotional Cycle - 28 days The emotional cycle is considered the dominant cycle in women. It regulates emotions, feelings, mood, sensitivity, sensation, sexuality, fantasy, temperament, nerves, reactions, affections and creativity.

Intellectual Cycle - 33 days The intellectual cycle regulates intelligence, logic, mental reaction, alertness, sense of direction, decision-making, judgment, power of deduction, memory, and ambition.

History

As long as 3000 years ago, the scientists of ancient Greece were recording the regular rhythms of basic bodily functions such as respiration, kidney activity, pulse rate and, of course, the female menstrual cycle. Most of us barely give them a thought; yet these rhythmic cycles affect even the tiniest cells of our organism from the day we are born to the day we die.

Hippocrates, the celebrated Greek physician, noticed that good and bad days fluctuated cyclically in both sick and healthy people. It was only relatively recently, however, that the theory of three internal cycles with a definite effect on behavior patterns gained credibility in our society, and many people in all walks of life appreciated its practical use.

In modern times we think of the 'fathers of biorhythm theory as Dr. Wilhem Fliess and Hermanna Swoboda.

A German physician in Berlin, Wilhem Fliess, provided the first tentative explanation for this phenomenon, on the basis of physiological and emotional cycles.

Later an Austrian physician, Prof. Alfred Telcher, further developed the theory identifying a third component, the intellectual cycle.

Hermanna Swoboda was a professor of psychology at the University of Vienna. Dr. Wilhelm Fliess was a nose and throat specialist in Berlin. Like so many important scientific discoveries, both Fliess and Swoboda were working along very similar lines with almost no knowledge of each other's work. It is quite extraordinary that these two scientists, despite doing independent research, came to virtually identical conclusions.

Both Swoboda and Fliess found psychology intriguing and due to books and information beginning to surface at the time, took an interest in human cycles. Swoboda published this paper at the Universal of Vienna in 1900 - "Life is subject to consistent changes. This understanding does not refer to changes in our destiny or to changes that take place in the course of life. Even if someone lived a life entirely free of outside forces, of anything that could alter his mental and physical state, still his life would not be identical from day to day. The best of physical health does not prevent us from feeling ill sometimes, or less happy then usual."

Analyzing dreams, ideas and creative impulses of his patients, Swoboda noticed very regular patters or rhythms. Some artists might be familiar with these dry spells and then frenzies of creations with predictable variations. He also observed that new mothers began to show anxiety about their infants whenever a critical day occurred or was about to occur.

Swoboda's discovery of these two basic biorhythms led him to write a succession of distinguished and widely-popular books explaining and developing the ideas of human cycles. First of these books, published in 1904, is titled The Periods of Human Life (in their psychological and biological significance). His second book titled Studies on the Basis of Psychology further elaborated his work on creativity and the recurrence of dreams. In 1909 he published an instruction booklet which included a slide rule to calculate critical days called, 'The Critical Days of Man'.

Swoboda's best book, and one of his last, was a volume of almost 600 pages titled 'The Year of Seven'. Much of that work was devoted to proving biorhythm theory by giving a mathematical analysis of how the timing of births tends to be rhythmic and predictable from generation to generation within the same family.

Wilhelm Fliess on the other hand did not get nearly as much gratification from his discovery as Swoboda. He did introduce Sigmund Freud, a friend of his, to Biorhythms around the turn of the century. Freud, well known as the father of modern psychology, was very interested in human behavior and was fascinated by Fliess's work. During the course of five years they wrote over a hundred letters to each other discussing their respective discoveries and research.

Both Fliess and Freud were interested in human bisexuality. Fliess begun to prove cellular bisexuality through his research of Biorhythms realizing that both men and women had an emotional cycle that was the same. He stated that Women are more influenced by the emotional cycle and men are more affected by the physical cycle.

He concluded, due to cellular bisexuality both male and females have both rhythms (saying that men have a pseudo menstrual cycle, if you will). In 1909, Fliess published a book entitled 'The Course of Life', which spurred other doctor, Hans Schlieper, to write a book on Biorhythms called 'The Year in Space'.

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About Biorhythms» This page has been viewed 443 times