Inside Yoga 119 (28/10/14)
Scientists have discovered that the body has a pair of daily “rush hours” which affects the way tissues throughout the body work. The animal study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, monitored the function of cells, in 12 tissues, through the day. It found large shifts in activity just before dawn and dusk.
According to a BBC report experts said the findings could help time medication to hit sweet-spots in the body clock. “The body’s internal clock is known to drive huge changes – it alters alertness, mood, physical strength and even the risk of a heart attack in a daily rhythm,” the report says.
A team at the University of Pennsylvania investigated the impact of the time of day on the way DNA functions in experiments on mice. Every two hours they looked at samples from the kidney, liver, lung, adrenal gland, aorta, brainstem, cerebellum, brown fat, white fat, heart, hypothalamus, lung and skeletal muscle.
Two major windows of activity were observed in the study – dawn and dusk.
What I find fascinating is that science has, yet again, has only just caught up with way yoga and ayurvedic (the science behind yoga) understands our bodies. For thousands of years yogis, Buddhist meditators, and others in different spiritual traditions, have arisen just before dawn to practice meditation and exercises.
The reason for doing this, besides the obvious explanation that everyone else is asleep so the practitioner is less likely to be disturbed, is that at this time of the day the body is in best place to practice, is that our biorhythms are in tune with the environment around and with ourselves – at this time it is usually quiet and still, it is called the sattvic period of balanced harmony. We are also more in tune with our own bodies and mind – simply because it is the start of the day: we have not been caught up in the day’s activities and become driven by it, for example, during the day we can become angry at a bad day, stressed due to over work, and distracted by the events, and as a result we lose the connection with our body and mind that we might have had as we woke up.
Unfortunately, this report about the two rush hours is more interested in finding the best time to administer drugs and get the best from them, which has its use and place, but I think it is a shame that this sort of study is more interested in this, and not seeing that these hours and these natural rhythms can be used to heal and help us without drugs.
We could be looking at how these time periods can help us to use natural remedies like yoga exercises (physical and breathing), meditation and diet to improve our health. As I said above, traditionally pre-dawn is seen as the best time for yoga/meditation practice. And to be honest, if it is post-dawn, but when we wake up, it is still the best time to practice.
Just a thought to pose, that science and yoga are on the same page – albeit sometimes with different motivations.
To see the BBC report, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29747358
And the scientific report, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/23/1408886111
Feel free to leave me a comment about this
