Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing

This book is very interesting. It's so engaging that it's hard to put it down. It was delivered to me fast, I am very satisfied.

I bought the ebook for $9.99. In my view, it was a great deal as I have a kindle and sometimes read on my laptop. The book is an introduction into the circadian rhythms, describing the story and the scientists that started to discover key mechanisms in plants and mice. At first the book doesn't seem scientific as it mainly recounts anecdotal stories about history and interesting facts. By chapter 8 and on, the book details the biology clock present in the suprachiasmatic nucleus and the connections between it and the brain. To sum up, this book is a fitting introduction for those who enjoy reading the backstory behind the discovery of circadian rhythms.

Again, one of the authors is the discoverer of the Circadian Clock's light detection cells. An earlier book, but excellent and covers sleep and wake rhythms in a fascinating way.

I had bought this book because the author had written a number of interesting editorials in the New York Times (or at least the version I read, the International Herald Tribune), and I also have a strong interest in Chinese medicine, which had already incorporated the body clock into its account of the body many hundreds of years before. For instance talk about the Qi flowing strongly in the large intestine from 5-7am, the heart from 11am to 1pm, the lungs at 3 to 5am.However I found this book to be overly dry and academic, delving deep into the mechanics of how certain circadian rhthyms work in different animals (spending an inordinate amount of time writing about trying to figure out where the body clock is located in the body or the cells), but does not step back and address some of the bigger picture issues I was interested in- like what time is optimum to exercise?- what is the optimum time to eat?- what are the effects of the tides on the human body / mestruation ?- is there any basis to the Chinese body clock compared to the scientific research that was highlighted in the book- how does aligning ourselves with the sunrise and sunset contribute to our health (i.e. should we be staying up late until midnight and what health effects would there be long term)- why are there different bodily effects during different times of the day (what is the biological /evolutionary reason for these effects)I found none of these things or passing reference in the text. I understand that this is an introduction to a burgeoning field, but it would have been more interesting if the book had tried to address some of these issues for the lay reader instead of the purely biologically or scientifically minded.

Another brilliant book and facts, about the cosmic rhythms. I do recommend, more information anyone can digest. Great info.

Utterly over simplifies biological clocks.

This is a great book on the biological rhythms of life. I really enjoyed the content of the book and understand how we humans are so connected with the earth.

I've long believed there's a lot to be learned by observing and appreciating the natural rhythms of the body. There's more than one force at work but Foster & Kreitzman give a good presentation. Easy to understand.

The authors have produced a very readable book on a subject of real relevance in our modern era. We have become detached from daily rhythms that our ancestors lived by. We have altered our world by modern ‘improvements’ such as shift work, electric light, central heating, international travel through time zones. This book helps us to know why we are often ‘out of sorts’. GPs and other medics should read this and understand that what makes us unwell can’t always be treated with a pill. Maybe we just need to look at the rhythms of our life.

Auther describes our rhythm in such a wonderful way, definitely page turner

És un llibre bastant complet. És un compendi ràpid per posar-se al dia de les bases preliminars. No han variat molt amb els anys els conceptes bàsics i per això el vaig adquirir. Amb tot, en ser un llibre de fa 13 anys no recull la situació actual.

Earlier reviewers give a helpful picture. I would just add two notes. First, you will see that one of the other reviewers was using the book for the third year of his university course. That indicates what to expect. The book is pretty technical, and I found quite a lot of it to be hard going. Second, the book makes it very clear that most of our knowledge of this subject has been gained from experimenting on animals, mainly fruit-flies, mice and sparrows, but lots of other animals as well. If you have serious reservations about animal experimentation, you may find some pretty disturbing passages in this book. Some of it, I thought, was pretty awful and reading these passages was grim.

It’s really amazing! Beyond my understanding but I’m really enjoying it, thank you so much!