Rise and Shine!

Psalm 57:8-9
“Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I [myself] will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.”

On the first morning of the time change to daylight savings, it’s a little harder to get up. That night it might be a little more difficult to feel sleepy at bedtime. This is because our bodies need a little time to adjust to the time change.

All of us have a built-in, 24-hour biological clock that regulates our daily cycles of body temperature, hormones, and sleepiness and wakefulness. As the days get longer or shorter, or when we travel from one time zone to another, our clocks need to be reset. Medical researchers have found that insomnia is sometimes caused by a miss-set biological clock. Research shows that our clocks are reset by light. Your biological clock is a group of nerve cells in the hypothalamus at the base of your brain. How do those cells know whether they are keeping the proper time?

To find out, scientists kept rats in complete darkness for seven days. Tests with both humans and animals show that this will effectively confuse the biological clock. Then researchers exposed the rats to light just before what normally would be dawn. They report that the light caused immediate activity in two genes within the biological clock. This was the only part of the brain in which the genes responded to light.

Our biological clock with its reset mechanism is a practical invention of our all-wise Creator that inspires wonder even among those who don’t believe in Him.

Prayer:
I praise You, dear Father, for all the wonders You have designed into my body. I also thank You that You have so wonderfully designed them that even those who do not believe that You are the Creator are filled with wonder over Your marvelous work. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Notes:
M. Stroh. “Genes May Help Reset Circadian Clock.” Science News, Vol. 141, p. 196. Photo: The work was done by Yassine Mrabet. Information provided from “The Body Clock Guide to Better Health” by Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lamberg; Henry Holt and Company, Publishers (2000). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic licenses.