Biorhythms: Theory and Controversy

This article explores the theory of biorhythms, which suggests that human life is influenced by rhythmic biological cycles affecting physical, emotional, and intellectual abilities. Controversy surrounds this theory, with opposing views on its accuracy and predictive power.

Biorhythms
Name
Institution

Biorhythms
Biorhythms are a theory that asserts that the daily life of a human being is largely affected by a
number of rhythmic cycles. In particular, the theory presumes that the physical, emotional and
intellectual abilities of man pass through cycles of favorable, unfavorable and critical
moments. The theory was proposed by Wilhelm Fliess, with its popularity rising in the 1970s
particularly in the United States (Shephard, 1984). Controversy still surrounds the theory with
those opposed to it claiming that the idea “has no more predictive power than chance” (Holley et.
al, 1981).
According to the biorhythms theory, one’s life is significantly influenced by rhythmic biological
cycles, which affects ones emotional, intellectual and even physical abilities. The theory proposes
that the cycles begins at birth, and oscillates throughout an individual’s lifetime in a steady sine-
wave pattern. As such, a person’s level of ability – in the domains affected - can be predicted
through mathematical modeling.
Each of the three basic biorhythm rhythms completes a cycle independent of the other; with the
physical biorhythm having a cycle of 23 days, emotional biorhythm having a 28 day cycle and
intellectual biorhythm completing the cycle in 33 days (Glymour & Stalker, 1990).
Being a sine-wave pattern, each cycle reaches a peak then goes back to zero before changing
polarity. The specific day that a given cycle crosses the zero line is termed as the transition day;
and is described as a “critical day of greater risk and uncertainty” (James, 1984).
The three basic cycles are as follows;
 Physical Cycle: this cycle lasts for a period of 23 days, and is associated with the
regulation of strength, resistance, metabolic rate, initiative and stamina
 Emotional Cycle; the cycle runs for a period of 28 days, and is associated with regulating
emotions, creativity, affections, reactions, nerves, fantasy, sensitivity, mood and feelings.
 Intellectual Cycle: the cycle lasts for 33 days and is largely associated with regulating
ambition, memory, judgment, and decision-making, sense of direction, alertness, mental
reaction, logic and intelligence.

Pseudocode for Biorhythms Calculations
 get user birth date
 get target date
 convert the dates to Gregorian ordinal value
 create an array with the range of dates around the target data that the calculations will be
done
 Apply the formula to calculate biorhythms for various cycles; loop though the array of the
date range and get each date, subtract birthdate from the given date within the range
o “y = 100*[sin(2*pi*(t - birthday)/23), # Physical
o sin(2*pi*(t - birthday)/28), # Emotional
o sin(2*pi*(t - birthday)/33)]; # Intellectual”
 Create an array of labels
o for each date in the date range array, convert it from ordinals to date
 Plot the graph
To facilitate the calculation of the day of a given date, we defined a function as shown below;
“def getDay(d, m, y):
t = [ 0, 3, 2, 5, 0, 3,
5, 1, 4, 6, 2, 4 ]
y -= m < 3
return (( y + int(y / 4) - int(y / 100)
+ int(y / 400) + t[m - 1] + d) % 7)”
The second function for identifying the day of the week, takes in a number and matches against
the days;
“def matchDay(d):
if d == 0:
return 'Sunday'
elif d == 1:
return 'Monday'
elif d == 2:
return 'Tuesday'
elif d == 3:
return 'Wednesday'
elif d == 4:
return 'Thursday'
elif d == 5:
return 'Friday'
elif d == 6:
return 'Saturday'”

The resulting python code snippets;
Figure 1.0 the graph and the command line section
Discussion
Biorhythm rhythms are a peculiar idea and their truths are hard to prove whether they have any
effects on human life. The theory proposes that human life is largely influenced by rhythmic
biological cycles, which affects a person’s emotional, intellectual and physical abilities. The
cycle begins at birth, and oscillates throughout an individual’s lifetime in a steady sine-wave
pattern. As such, a person’s level of ability – in the domains affected - can be predicted through
mathematical modeling.

Controversy surrounds this theory with those opposed to it claiming that the idea “has no more
predictive power than chance” (Holley et. al, 1981). The arguments presented by those who
oppose the theory seem to hold water, compared to the proponents of the theory. There is no clear
evidence as to whether the theory is accurate and as such, it remains a mystery.

References
Glymour, C., & Stalker, D. (1990). Winning through pseudoscience. Philosophy of Science and
the Occult, 92-103.
Holley, D. C., Winger, C. M., DeRoshia, C. W., Heinold, M. P., Edgar, D. M., Kinney, N. E., ...
& Anthony, J. A. (1981). Effects of circadian rhythm phase alteration on physiological
and psychological variables: Implications to pilot performance (including a partially
annotated bibliography).
Hines, T. M. (1998). Comprehensive review of biorhythm theory. Psychological reports, 83(1),
19-64.
James, A. (1984). The validity of ‘; biorhythmic’theory questioned. British Journal of
Psychology, 75(2), 197-200.
Shephard, R. J. (1984). Sleep, biorhythms and human performance. Sports Medicine, 1(1), 11-37.