Body clocks on Mars

louis · 2016-01-28 09:40:32

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 90759.htm#

The takeaway point seems to be:

"But if we ever do get to the Red Planet, I suspect we will be faced with body clock problems; those people with abnormally slow body clocks would be best suited to living there."

A more positive gloss on this might be that "as long we choose the right people, there will be no problem with the human body clock on Mars"!

RobertDyck · 2016-01-28 10:44:20

I have to argue against this. In first year university I was required to take an "arts credit". The course I took was first year psychology. The professor showed a number of films. One was about a psychologist that was hired to help a mining company. That mine operated 24/7 and had swing shifts. That means workers would work about 2 weeks on one shift, then switch to another. They were always tired, dragged out, unproductive. The psychologist had them go to bed as soon as their shift ended, whenever they start a new shift. Then go to bed one hour later every day, and set their alarm clock one hour later. He had supervisors schedule their shift so that just as their time to get up would bump against time to start their shift, the shift changed to 8 hours later. So the shift changed once every 8 days. The result was workers lived a 25 hour day. This ended the problems with adjustment to a new schedule. It ended the "body clock" problems. And they discovered workers actually lived better than those living a normal 24 hour day.

This was done with humans, not animals. Mars has a solar day 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.244 seconds. That's less than the 25 hours the miners lived, and the miners handled better than a normal 24 hour day. So not a problem.

louis · 2016-01-28 13:02:32

Hi Robert,

I think the original article was looking at how people would experience Mars with their body clocks WITHOUT special shift systems. I am sure you are right that proper shifts could deal with any body clock issues (perhaps in tandem with artificial lighting).

Incidentally (given your location) - is the system you describe related to the Ottawa shift system which I recall the UK police were looking at a couple of decades ago?

RobertDyck wrote:

I have to argue against this. In first year university I was required to take an "arts credit". The course I took was first year psychology. The professor showed a number of films. One was about a psychologist that was hired to help a mining company. That mine operated 24/7 and had swing shifts. That means workers would work about 2 weeks on one shift, then switch to another. They were always tired, dragged out, unproductive. The psychologist had them go to bed as soon as their shift ended, whenever they start a new shift. Then go to bed one hour later every day, and set their alarm clock one hour later. He had supervisors schedule their shift so that just as their time to get up would bump against time to start their shift, the shift changed to 8 hours later. So the shift changed once every 8 days. The result was workers lived a 25 hour day. This ended the problems with adjustment to a new schedule. It ended the "body clock" problems. And they discovered workers actually lived better than those living a normal 24 hour day.
This was done with humans, not animals. Mars has a solar day 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.244 seconds. That's less than the 25 hours the miners lived, and the miners handled better than a normal 24 hour day. So not a problem.

RobS · 2016-01-28 18:58:18

I have also heard of psychological research on subjects living in caves without clocks and no natural clues of the time of day and night. Apparently they tended to shift to a "day" of something like 30 hours.

I bet that would not be a problem, especially with a "Mediterranean" lifestyle where you eat lunch about 2, nap until 4 or 5, work a few more hours, eat supper at 9 or 10 p.m., and go to bed after midnight. When my wife and I lived in Seville, Spain, we never were able to adjust to it, but it was standard. Cities like that have 4 rush hours a day, by the way, because everyone goes home for lunch and a long nap.

louis · 2016-01-29 04:57:36

And very civilised it is too! The Spanish are also out on the veranda eating their evening meal at 10pm, young (well behaved) children included. A siesta approach would probably work well on Mars, where people will effectively be working probably 12-14 hour days to begin with. Much better if you split that into two work periods.

RobS wrote:

I have also heard of psychological research on subjects living in caves without clocks and no natural clues of the time of day and night. Apparently they tended to shift to a "day" of something like 30 hours.
I bet that would not be a problem, especially with a "Mediterranean" lifestyle where you eat lunch about 2, nap until 4 or 5, work a few more hours, eat supper at 9 or 10 p.m., and go to bed after midnight. When my wife and I lived in Seville, Spain, we never were able to adjust to it, but it was standard. Cities like that have 4 rush hours a day, by the way, because everyone goes home for lunch and a long nap.

GW Johnson · 2016-01-29 14:47:31

Seems like I saw somewhere years ago something about some people who spent months isolated in a cave, away from any light/dark signal. Their natural circadian rhythm stretched past 30 hours. The number I want to say I remember was about 36 hours.

Looks like RobS in post 4 above ran across exactly the same experiment. So I am not losing my overage mind.

GW

louis · 2016-01-29 19:05:47

Just going on my own vague recollections...you may well be right, but it doesn't necessarily mean the body and brain are operating proficiently when that sort of circadian drift occurs. It's probably what happens when the body and brain aren't receiving cues from regular day/night patterns. In other words, while we may drift to 30 hours or more, for proper functioning we need to be a lot closer to the 24 hour mark (hardly surprising given the evolutionary pressures for us to function in relation to Earth's rotational cycle) and it seems that, thankfully, Mars is just within the margin for most or a substantial part of humanity.

GW Johnson wrote:

Seems like I saw somewhere years ago something about some people who spent months isolated in a cave, away from any light/dark signal. Their natural circadian rhythm stretched past 30 hours. The number I want to say I remember was about 36 hours.
Looks like RobS in post 4 above ran across exactly the same experiment. So I am not losing my overage mind.
GW

SpaceNut · 2016-01-29 20:58:39

I do remember vagly something about the cave experiment and how it would effect early mans existance since we would have used caves for protection in the history of mans survival...

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle … ep-science

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/24/us/af … e-sun.html

A woman who lived 130 days alone in a sealed cave with no human contact climbed out today, waved to a crowd of about 60 people and said, ''Wow, man!'' Miss Follini will undergo a series of tests in coming weeks as scientists try to determine what happened to her body and mind in the four months and 10 days she spent 30 feet underground. In the absence of night, day or timepieces, Miss Follini's menstrual cycle stopped and her sleep-wake cycle changed radically. She tended to stay up 20 to 25 hours at a time, sleeping about 10 hours.

Issue 30 The Underground Summer 2008 Caveman: An Interview with Michel Siffre

1962, a French speleologist named Michel Siffre spent two months living in total isolation in a subterranean cave, without access to clock, calendar, or sun. Sleeping and eating only when his body told him to, his goal was to discover how the natural rhythms of human life would be affected by living “beyond time.” Over the next decade, Siffre organized over a dozen other underground time isolation experiments, before he himself returned to a cave in Texas in 1972 for a six-month spell.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-05-27 16:16:30

Can sleep really clear toxins from the brain? New study offers clues
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl … rain-study

Regulation of the activation of transient receptor potential (TRP) channels could lead to the development of new treatments for numerous sleep and circadian rhythm disorders.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful … jcmm.18274

Sleep Research Society announces 2024 award recipients
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1044765

isolated on a boat and with weather conditions a loss of a sense of connection and time

Madness at Sea: A Horrifying True Story
https://youtu.be/zhpYCxiI-4U

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#1 2016-01-28 09:40:32

Body clocks on Mars

#2 2016-01-28 10:44:20

Re: Body clocks on Mars

#3 2016-01-28 13:02:32

Re: Body clocks on Mars

#4 2016-01-28 18:58:18

Re: Body clocks on Mars

#5 2016-01-29 04:57:36

Re: Body clocks on Mars

#6 2016-01-29 14:47:31

Re: Body clocks on Mars

#7 2016-01-29 19:05:47

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#8 2016-01-29 20:58:39

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#9 2024-05-27 16:16:30

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