Do you wake up just before the alarm goes off?

Many of us think that we open our eyes just a few moments before the alarm goes off in the morning. We woke up, we looked at the time and, curiously, it turns out that a few minutes are missing for the alarm to sound. Has it happened to you?

If this had happened to me on a specific day, well, I might think it happens by chance; or if it happened only to me. However, it is not like that. Everything indicates that our heads already know that it is time to get up.

The biological clock

How many times have we heard of that biological clock that determines our lives: that if the dream, that if the hunger, that if having children ... Some addition should be popular culture, sure, but there is a kind of internal clock that regulates our organism.

We do not have to imagine a chronometer, which counts how many hours we have slept and says "enough" when it comes to waking up. The idea of ​​a clock is given by the time period: we have an internal cycle that lasts about 24 hours, and it is repeated once and again.

It is what is known as the circadian cycle (where circa means 'near' and diano comes from 'day'). And we do not have only people: also animals and plants. Look, if not, in those plants that open when it is day and close when it is night.

Through this cycle the body of people controls functions such as hormone levels, body temperature, metabolism, blood pressure or sleep. The moment when the alarm clock is about to sound, the circadian cycle follows its process: it is precisely the moment when a protein called Per is responsible for making us increase blood pressure and body temperature. It is a physiological issue.

But it is evident that it does not happen to us every day or to the whole world. It's not that our internal clock does not work well, do not worry! Our body continues to work inside us even if we are not aware of them, and often only manifests in this way in people or during times when a more monotonous and squared lifestyle is carried out. And not only when it comes to going to sleep and getting up, but to the basic routines of getting up, eating and going to bed, in general.

Custom

If in addition to having an internal mechanism that follows a cyclical process of about 24 hours, we add that people have a routine and we get used to waking up every day at the same time, the effect is much greater.

It is as if in this way we were tuning the mechanism of our clock, telling it how it works and how it should work. Thus, the efficiency of our cycle is further enhanced: with habit, our body learns to regulate the levels of Per protein so that it adjusts more to the cycle.

What happens if we break the routine?

The day we have a different plan and we must get up at a different time than usual, many times there is also someone who wakes up by himself at the time he touches. But why, if then the cycle is altered?

When we have an interview the next day, when we have to get up earlier to go to an appointment or to go on a trip ... in these cases, in addition to the proteins that regulate the circadian cycle, other elements that take care of keep our celebro in a state of alert.

However, I can not say much about this anymore. Because in my case in these days when there is a special event it is not that I have an alert to wake up earlier: I would say that I am on alert all night, because then I usually pass them by candlelight!