History

The History of Biorhythms

Scientists in ancient Greece, 2,500 years ago, were noting the regular rhythm of basic body processes such as breathing, pulse rate, activity of the liver and kidneys. We rarely give it a thought; but these rhythmic cycles affect us from the day we are born, to the day we die.

The Greek physician, Hippocrates observed that good and bad days seemed to come in cycles for both healthy and sick people. Only more recently, however, has the theory of three independent internal cycles with a distinct effect on behaviour patterns gained any credibility within Western society.

In the late nineteenth century, the Berlin physician Wilhem Fliess provided the first explanation of this phenomenon – using two cycles, the emotional and physiological.

Later an Austrian, Profressor Alfred Telcher, developed the theory by his identification of a 3rd component, the intellectual cycle.

Further, a professor of psychology at Vienna University Hermann Swoboda analysed the dreams and impulses of his patients, and in doing so, noticed regular patterns or rhythms. His discovery of basic periodicity impelled him to write a series of books, firstly “The Periods of Human Life, in 1904. Much of his later work was concerned with a proof of biorhythmical theory by statistical analysis.