I was introduced to Biorhythms by my father, when I was in middle school or high school.  As Biorhythms are calculated with a mathematical formula, my fathers interest was understandable, he was after all, a mathematician. My obsession with them defies logic – I am neither a mathematician, nor an aspiring fortune teller, but I check them frequently enough that I “know” when certain of my rhythms are “up” or “down”.  According to facade, biorhythm cycles map our emotional, physical and intellectual proclivities throughout the month, and these are based on our birth date, with the intellectual cycle lasting 33 days, the physical cycle lasting 23 days, and the emotional one for 28 days (whether you are female or not).

“The numbers from +100% (maximum) to -100% (minimum) indicate where the rhythms are on a particular day. In general, a rhythm at 0% is thought to have no real impact on your life, whereas a rhythm at +100% (a high) would give you an edge in that area, and a rhythm at -100% (a low) would make life more difficult in that area. There is no particular meaning to a day on which your rhythms are all high or all low, except the obvious benefits or hindrances that these rare extremes are thought to have on your life.”

So right now, I am in the middle of what my husband and I jokingly refer to as “Dastardly Days” – meaning that everything is “down”.  (When everything is “up” we call this a “Triple Wicked” – not sure why.) I had sort of been anticipating these days as I had intentionally entered a 7 mile swim for when

everything was projected to be “up” on October 28th.  (Unfortunately, due to a horrific hurricane season, this swim has been canceled this year.)

Having suffered from melancholy most of my life, I have found my biorhythms at least, to be uncannily accurate in the emotional cycle.   If I have a really bad weekend and I go back and check what my biorhythms were that weekend, I almost invariably find that my emotional cycle was in “down” mode.  I haven’t been very good at anticipating the downside of my emotions, only in looking back retrospectively, because I believe that I actually do have a significant amount of control over my life.  At least I have control over how I behave, or react to a given situation.  Nonetheless, if I have been feeling especially morose for seemingly no reason at all, once I’m over it, if I look back, yup, my emotional biorhythm was down.

The last few years however, I’ve also been sort of tracking my physical biorhythm, to see how accurate it is.  I find that it only has a very small effect on my performance in the gym or in the pool. However, if my biorhythms are down in emotions AND physical components, then I might as well stay in bed – or at least not even plan on being competitive.

I have learned that the days projected are not exactly accurate – they may be off by 7-10 days – the physical cycle at least.  The emotional cycle for me, is dead on.

So it is interesting to see what has been happening in my life the past several days.  I seem to find fault in everything, feel critical of everybody, and want to bark at idiots on the road, co-workers, and even my family members.  Knowing that my biorhythm is in down mode and that I am just about to move past it is helpful, because I can tell myself to hold my tongue for just a few days.  I’m more apt to get a second opinion from a co-worker rather than make a snap decision on something that is less than routine – to be on the safe side.  It’s incredibly gratifying to note that my performance in the pool and gym are not “down” even though the chart says they should be.  It will be interesting to see how things are in two weeks when I’m having a “triple wicked”.  I’ll let you know.

 

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