The Ups ... And The Downs ...

At the moment of our birth, a neutral baseline, we set into motion a series of rhythms that continue their individual courses thru us until the day we draw our last breath. From the beating of our hearts (approximately 76 beats per minute) to the 128- day life span of the red blood cell there exist the other three discernible rhythms we classify as Biorhythms, which have an affect on our lives with inescapable power. Hippocrates noticed this over 2,000 years ago, seeing that people seem subjected to good and bad days irrespective of their general state of health. In 1904 this age old thought was expounded upon by Dr. Hermann Swoboda, who was a professor of psychology at Vienna University, discovered 2 of the 3 biorhythms and wrote books bout them. He postulates on the thought of a 23 day physical cycle in all human beings and a 28 day emotional cycle (not to be confused with the female menstrual cycle set in motion at puberty, though it sometimes coincides with some women). Another Austrian, Alfred Telscher - a doctor at Innsbruck University, noticed that his students' intellectual powers seemed to wax and wane in 33 day cycles.

Now, folks tried to assign medical reasons as to why these rhythms are as they were. Wilhelm Fliess, a nose and throat specialist who also noticed the first two cycles when observing his patients resistance to diseases and these 23 and 28 day cycles. He reasoned that these cycles were somehow as a result of the basic hermaphroditic cell (reasoning based upon influence by Freud's teachings, he reasoned that human beings (just like their cells) were profoundly bisexual ... the female element in the 28 day emotional cycle and the male 23 day physical cycle.). Fliess and Swoboda both accepted the 33 day intellectual cycle, and thought this might be regulated by secretions of the pineal and thyroid glands.

Since these hypothesizes were written, research has later come to support these theories from the independent findings of Rexford Herset and Micheal John Bennett at Pennsylvania University. Another report study done by Hans Schwing, from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich, of accidents and accidental deaths, clearly linked to the biorhythms of the individuals concerned ...

Here are some examples of how BioRhythms Studies Have Been Used ...
In Switzerland that doctors and surgeons started to use this knowledge to determine the best time for operation... Swiss Air will not permit two pilots share the cockpit on days when the biorhythms of both are critical days .... Zurich Municipal Transit Company cut the accident rate by 50% after applying the study of biorhythms to their routes .... The Ohmi Railway Company (of Japan) which controls a fleet of taxis and buses in Osaka and Kyoto, studied all accidents by its drivers in a five year period and found that between 59 to 61% had occurred when the drivers' biorhythms were critical. The company started to issue and schedule around the cards with the employees biorhythms chart on it. Within a year, the accident rate fell in half and continued to fall even when in comparison to an overall trend chart for accident rates in the area showed a rising general accident rate.

The first half of each cycle is the progressive period during which we are full of energy and vigor as well as enthusiasm (be it physical, mental, or emotional). These cycles reach their "plus" peaks halfway thru this positive phase, then starts to decline - thru the neutral baseline - into the negative or rejuvanitory period (comparable to a recuperative period). Halfway thru this, the rhythm will hit its peak in this area and start to climb back upwards .. and so on.

The days when each cycles moves from one phase to the next, or crosses thru the neutral baseline, are the ones termed to be critical days (a 24 to 48 hour time period) -- statistically proven to be a time period that most folks are of exceptional vulneralibity and should take special care. There are at least 6 critical days each month, sometimes eight, in each person's biorhythms. Breaking this down, it means that you are in a critical phase of at least one biorhythm for at least 20% of the time (just chockful of cheery news aren't I ?) But there are numerous days when you may be in a double critical phase - when two of the biorhythms are in critical at the same time (oh happy happy joy joy huh ?). These are days to avoid over-exertion or special/extra stresses. _AND_ once in everyone's life comes the Grand Triple Critical Day !! This is when all three rhythms reach the same stage as at birth and start again, this occurs 21,252 (or 58.2 years) after birth.

So, how does one calculate their biorhythms??? Well... let me show you the formulas to follow ... so get out your calculators!!! (You will probably notice several figures appearing after the decimal pint in the results, they are termed "days left over" expressed as a fraction in this exercise) The formulation is pretty straightforward, though may sound confusing to some at first. There are also some computer programs and such available to help you determine your biorhythms.
1. Take your age at your next birthday and multiply it by 365 (the number of days in the year) ..... Let's say you will be 38, then it will be 38 x 365 = 13870
2. Add the number of leap years you have lived thru from the time of your birth to your next birthday ..... Let's say, uhm, 10 - then it will be 10 + total from step 1 = 13880
3. The Emotional cycle is obtained by dividing the total by 28 ..... Leaving us with the total of 495.7
4. The Physical Cycle is obtained by dividing the total so far by 23 ..... leaving us with 21.5
5. The Intellectual Cycle is obtained by dividing the total so far by 33 ..... Leaving us with 0.6
So let's plot out this 38 year old ... whose birthday is, for this example, May 24 ...
The emotional will go into positive on May 21st - using the remainder of .7 to work forward from the birthdate with.
The physical will go into positive on May 19th - using the .5 remainder to find this
And the Intellectual will go positive approx. May 18th
When you have calculated these three cycles, you can work out your biorhythms for the rest of year simply by counting the requisite days for each cycle forward or backwards (depending on what way you wanted to go). The number of days for each cycle to use in this step of the calculations is given in the earlier part of this posting. *Secretive points up to the first 2 paragraphs*

Happy calculating!! *grin*

© Carol aka Secretive 1996

Bibliography :

Future Now; Derek and Julia Parker; 1988; Mitchell Beazley International Ltd.

© Secretive aka Carol 1998

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