A Matter of Time

Biorhythms: The Facts and the Doubts

Biorhythms were discovered, or created, by Dr. Wilhelm Fliess about one-hundred years ago (“What Are Biorhythms?”).  Dr. Fliess was a nose and throat surgeon in Berlin (Coveney and Highfield 313).  He noticed behavior patterns in his patients over time and began to carefully monitor these patterns—looking for relationships between them and the states of physical, mental, and emotional well-being in his patients.  He found the physical cycle to be twenty-three days long, the emotional curve to be twenty-eight days long, and the mental curve to be thirty-three days long (“What Are Biorhythms?”).  Eventually it became possible to graph these curves and allow people to see when their emotional, physical, or mental well-being would be at its highest or lowest.  A typical biorhythm chart shows three lines, which are sections of a curve.  These lines represent the three categories of human health mentioned above.  Sections above the midpoint line indicate high times or good times for the biorhythm, sections below it indicate low or bad times.  There is also a midpoint line which shows critical times in the biorhythm (“What Are Biorhythms?”).  A critical day signifies either the worst day or the best day of the cycle.

The science upon which biorhythms are founded is often questioned, and biorhythyms are easily confused with biological rhythms (circadian rhythms).  “Biological rhythms should not be confused with biorhythms, which are purported physical, intellectual and emotional cycles said to be determined by the date and time of a person’s birth.  Most scientists regard the study of biorhythms as a pseudoscience” (Dotto 42).  Many people use them every day to warn themselves against certain activities and encourage themselves toward others.  Skeptics say that the charts are unreliable and cannot be used to support our lifestyle choices.  Still, the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology gives some convincing facts to back up the validity of biorhythms, such as: the suicides of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland on their critical days, as well as Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs at tennis during a high point in her cycle (“Biorhythm.”).  Is it a coincidence? What do you think?  Below, you have the option of checking your own biorhythms.  You can be the one to decide if biorhythms can be trusted.  Are you having a good day, but your biorhythm chart says you should be having an awful one?  Find out.

Click on the link below to see a typical graph of your biorhythms:
http://www.degraeve.com/bio.php

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