Counting your days with biorhythms

By Lim Tri Santosa

JAKARTA (JP): Do you believe in destiny? Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables said one day more, another day, another destiny. The movie is great, not only because of the actors; if you understand the vision of Victor Hugo, you are going to understand it is a deliberation of one's destiny, how men try to fight against other men, the history of self-limitation and how the world in not good or bad, it depends on the kind of situation we confront. Is it Jean Valjean's destiny? Let's look at another point of view.

What you have made is what you will face according to your birthdate. That is the basic concept of biorhythm as it applies to your daily life. "Bio" means life and "rhythm" means flowing with a regular movement. We all have three ways of operating in this world; three internal energies interacting with each other in a continuously changing pattern on a daily basis. These are our biorhythms. They are the three cycles of energy that govern our lives -- specifically the physical, emotional and intellectual. Each of these parts has its own ups and downs.

Biorhythms seem to have a lot of validity. They help to explain in part everything from having a bad week to exciting scientific concepts as the varied effects medications have when administered at different times.

Between 1897 and 1902, Dr. Hermann Swoboda of the University of Vienna researched the possibility of a rhythmic change in mood and health (http://skepdic.com/biorhyth.html).

He charted peoples' reaction to pain, outbreak of fevers, illnesses, asthma, heart attacks and recurrent dreams. He found that there was a 23-day physical cycle and a 28-day emotional cycle. The 33-day intellectual cycle was discovered by Alfred Teltscher of Innsbruck, Austria (www.teleport.com/~bioching/book/chap_1.html). He was a teacher of engineering who observed that his students' good days and bad days followed a rhythmic pattern of 33-days.

Because all these biorhythms begin on the day of our birth, we can know our ups and downs ahead of time. Every day, we each have a different combination of biorhythms. Our biorhythms are flowing at different speeds, they will not all meet at that same birth point again until we are 58 years and 66 days old. This is a new beginning, a rebirth in all our lives.

At the moment of birth, each cycle starts at a zero point and begins to rise in a positive phase during which the energies and abilities are high.

Engineers will recognize the cycles as "sine waves" in their form. After reaching a positive peak, each cycle then gradually declines, crossing its zero point midway through its period. Eleven and a half days for the physical, 14 days for the emotional, and 16 and a half days for the intellectual. The remainder of each cycle is a negative phase, during which our energies and capabilities are reduced.

The most unstable times are the "critical days" in each cycle, when the cycle crosses its zero point, changing from positive to negative or from negative to positive. During these critical days, the abilities vary wildly, from extremely high to extremely low. You may make brilliant discoveries or tragic logical errors on intellectually critical days. You may impulsively propose marriage or impulsively quit your job on emotionally critical days.

Different things for different people. If the physical rhythm is in a high phase, for instance, you might experience more physical ability then if that rhythm was in a low phase. An emotionally low rhythm might be categorized as a sleepy or even irritable emotional state, likewise, in an emotional high there can be an improved sense of well-being. Intellectually, a high might explain the ability to have more focus or mental clarity. In an intellectual low there could be more mental fuzz.

Even though the theory of biorhythms is a pseudoscience, there is some real evidence that biorhythms affects human's daily lives (www.teleport.com/~bioching/book/chap_1.html). In 1971, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police completed a study which showed that 82 percent of all self-caused traffic accidents involved drivers who were experiencing a critical biorhythmic day.

Another phenomenon is the biorhythms of John F. Kennedy, Jr. on the day he died in a plane crash. He was born on Nov. 25, 1960, and died on July 16, 1999, (www.bio-chart.com/jfk.html). Believe it or not, you can also check his rhythms on the day he died by entering the above dates at www.facade.com/biorhythm/. On the day he died, his emotional rhythm is crossing zero point, physical and intellectual is in the negative area. The worst pattern is the passion rhythm (physical joined with emotional). It is on its lowest negative point. One of the common actions linked with the passion rhythm is driving.

Two individuals' biorhythms can be tested for compatibility. Biorhythm compatibility is different than plotting an individual's biorhythm, because the compatibility between two people remains consistent throughout their lives. Are you compatible with your wife, mother-in-law or your coworkers? Check it out at www.facade.com/compatibility/.

The effect of our various biorhythmic combinations depends greatly upon the level of stress in our environment and our degree of tolerance to stress. When our biorhythms are high, we are better able to deal with the stress. How we feel about life and how we react to it is a combination of our biorhythms, environmental factors and our inherent energies.

Are biorhythms for real? That is for you to decide. The only way you will know is to test it on yourself and on others.