The physical cycle moves in 23 day cycles. Based loosly upon the menstration cycles of women, and the monthly hormonal cycles of men, the average cycle time for the physical realm adds up to approximately 23 days. For some people it may be more ot less by a day or two, but not normally. This level gives you an idea about your resistance to ailments, your overall strength and endurance as well as your energy levels. The high and low swings of this cycle can help you determine when you will be feeling your best physically. Of course, during your monthly hormonal changes, you will not be feeling at 'peak' level.

The Emotional cycle runs for a total of about 28 days. This number is the overall average for both men and women. While women tend to have higher emotional changes than men, it has been found that men too carry some fairly high emotional changes as well. However, most married men tend to have higher changes of emotions than single men. This is mostly due to the fact that men, in general, tend to naturally base their emotional levels upon the monthly hormonal switches of their wives, and thus, wind up nearly mirroring their wives' monthly cycles.

The Intellectual cycle is a bit of an 'odd' cycle in the fact that it runs longer than one month. This cycle runs for a 33 day period, and supposedly originates in the brain. I say supposedly, because this is based upon only a few bits of information. The brain, as wel now know, regulates all area of the body, however, it is not yet clear as to if the brain truly regulates emotional content. Thus, the reason this cycle is only 'supposedly' cerebral in origin. This cycle influences our memory, alertness, speed of learning, reasoning ability and accuracy of computation of information given to us, or required of us to bring forth from our memory banks to put into use at the present time. High swings in this level then mean that you're more open to accepting and understanding new ideas, theories and approaches, whereas the low swings would cause you to have some difficulty in grasping new ideas and concepts.

These cycles start the moment we are born. They are at a mid-point at that time. They then go up and down at different rates over our lifetimes. When any of the cycles are at a high point, things we do that require aspects of that trait are more successful - the reverse is true during the low points of a cycle. Many people report that they can improve the quality of their lives by monitoring their biorhythms and acting accordingly.

All three cycles go through positive ( ascending ) and negative ( descending ) phases. The days on which a cycle passes from positive to negative or vice versa are known as 'critical' days. There are three critical days in each cycle, and it has been proved statistically that more accidents happen on these days than at any other point in the cycle.

History of Biorhythms As long as 3000 years ago, the scientists of ancient Greece were recording the regular rhythms of basic bodily functions such as respiration, kidney activity, pulse rate and, of course, the female menstrual cycle. Most of us barely give them a thought; yet these rhythmic cycles affect even the tiniest cells of our organism from the day we are born to the day we die.

Hippocrates, the celebrated Greek physician, noticed that good and bad days fluctuated cyclically in both sick and healthy people. It was only relatively recently, however, that the theory of three internal cycles with a definite effect on behavior patterns gained credibility in our society, and its practical use was appreciated by many people in all walks of life.

In modern times we think of the 'fathers of biorhythm theory as Dr. Wilhem Fliess and Hermanna Swoboda. A German physician in Berlin, Wilhem Fliess, provided the first tentative explanation for this phenomenon, on the basis of physiological and emotional cycles. Later an Austrian physician, Prof. Alfred Telcher, further developed the theory identifying a third component, the intellectual cycle.

Hermanna Swoboda was a professor of psychology at the University of Vienna. Dr. Wilhelm Fliess was a nose and throat specialist in Berlin. Like so many important scientific discoveries, both Fliess and Swoboda were working along very similar lines with almost no knowledge of each other's work. It is quite extraordinary that these two scientists, despite doing independent research, came to virtually identical conclusions.

Both Swoboda and Fliess found psychology intriguing and due to books and information beginning to surface at the time, took an interest in human cycles. Analyzing dreams, ideas and creative impulses of his patients, Swoboda noticed very regular patters or rhythms. Some artists might be familiar with these dry spells and then frenzies of creations with predictable variations. He also observed that new mothers began to show anxiety about their infants whenever a critical day occurred or was about to occur.

Swoboda's discovery of these two basic biorhythms led him to write a succession of distinguished and widely-popular books explaining and developing the ideas of human cycles. First of these books, published in 1904, is titled The Periods of Human Life (in their psychological and biological significance ). His second book titled Studies on the Basis of Psychology further elaborated his work on creativity and the recurrence of dreams. In 1909 he published an instruction booklet which included a slide rule to calculate critical days called, The Critical Days of Man.

Swoboda's best book, and one of his last, was a volume of almost 600 pages titled The Year of Seven. Much of that work was devoted to proving biorhythm theory by giving a mathematical analysis of how the timing of births tends to be rhythmic and predictable from generation to generation within the same family.

Wilhelm Fliess on the other hand did not get nearly as much gratification from his discovery as Swoboda. He did introduce Sigmund Freud, a friend of his, to Biorhythms around the turn of the century. Freud, well known as the father of modern psychology, was very interested in human behavior and was fascinated by Fliess's work. During the course of five years they wrote over a hundred letters to each other discussing their respective discoveries and research. Both Fliess and Freud were interested in human bisexuality. Fliess begun to prove cellular bisexuality through his research of Biorhythms realizing that both men and women had an emotional cycle that was the same. He stated that Women are more influenced by the emotional cycle and men are more affected by the physical cycle.

He concluded, due to cellular bisexuality both male and females have both rhythms (saying that men have a pseudo menstrual cycle, if you will). In 1909, Fliess published a book entitled The Course of Life, which spurred other doctor, Hans Schlieper, to write a book on Biorhythms called The Year in Space.

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