‘Night people’, for example, often describe how they find it very hard to operate during the morning, but become alert and focused by evening. Not everyone has an identical circadian rhythm. Aside from sleeping at night and waking during the day, each cycle involves many other factors such as changes in blood pressure and body temperature. This is the complete cycle our bodies are naturally geared to undergo within the passage of a twenty-four hour day. When it comes to humans, chronobiologists are interested in what is known as the circadian rhythm. A third group are known as crepuscular: they thrive in the low-light of dawn and dusk and remain inactive at other hours. Nocturnal animals, such as bats and possums, prefer to forage by night. Numerous creatures, humans included, are largely diurnal – that is, they like to come out during the hours of sunlight. Animals tend to be active or inactive depending on the position of the sun or moon. Marine life, for example, is influenced by tidal patterns. Chronobiology might sound a little futuristic – like something from a science fiction novel, perhaps – but it’s actually a field of study that concerns one of the oldest processes life on this planet has ever known: short-term rhythms of time and their effect on flora and fauna.
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