There is this really fascinating concept in medicine. It is called circaseptan bioperiodicity. The human body seems to have seven-day rhythms in its healing.
There are actually advantages to timing and dosing of treatments in seven-day periods. For example, if recipients of organ transplants are going to reject an organ, it is often on the 7th or 14th day. Also, human breast milk spikes certain hormones on seven-day cycles.
This circaseptan (seven-day) rhythm is related to ourcircadian rhythm—the approximate 24-hour rhythm our bodies have. Studies have shown that disruption of our circadian and circaseptan rhythms have adverse effects on our health: frontal lobe damage in our brains, cancerous growths, and psychiatric disorders. There are advantages to having hospitals follow seven-day routines. Here is one example.
One researcher pointed out that France experimented with a ten-day (metric) week during the time of the French revolution with disastrous results. “The mental institutions filled rather quickly to capacity and then some.” (Life laboratory)
Some might attribute these rhythms to the rhythms of sunlight and earth rotations, but I believe that even these rhythms are Creator designed.
My son, T, has done on-the-street surveys with passersby about the 10 commandments. One of the least known commandments is the one about keeping the Sabbath. People just don’t know about it. (The most common one that people know is not to kill other people…but still that is only less than 70% of those he surveys.)
The commandment actually says that the reason that we should keep the Sabbath holy is that the Creator made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. (Exodus 20) So, the raison d’etre is Creation, which means—like the rest of the 10 commandments, it applies to us, not just pre-Jesus Christ people.
Jesus said that the Sabbath was “made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This is a radical concept to us, as it was for the religious leaders of Jesus’ time: the Sabbath is made for us. There are blessings associated with it.
Some people have jobs of mercy and necessity that require working on Sunday. One can’t always rest on Sunday if he or she is a firefighter, physician, or prime minister. And that is OK. Jesus said we would need to get some “oxen out of our ditches” on the Sabbath. One pastor that I knew said that because he had to consistently work on Sunday (in a demanding way often), he claimed Mondays as his Sabbath. He rested that day instead. He found it a blessing to himself, his marriage, and his family.
Could it be that putting aside our work on the Sabbath will benefit our health? Could it be that a concept of Sabbath helps us maximize our circaseptan rhythms?
Could it be that the day was made for me?
|||||| lynard
Recent Comments