When aiming for the medal, Olympic athletes have a vast amount of factors working against them such as genetics, training, diet, and self-confidence to perform the best accuracy and speed to defeat their competitor(s). Recently researchers and coaches have created the theory that time is also a performance factor. Predictable patterns, also known as Circadian Rhythms, such as the time an athlete eats, sleeps and wakes at specific times are thought to contribute to an athlete’s performance. Circadian Rhythms are biological cycles that are driven by an “internal clock” and occur once every 24 hrs. they can be influenced by external factors such as stress, diet and exposure to light. These Circadian Rhythms influence the time we wake up and fall asleep. Body Temperature has been recorded to be  lowest at 4:00 in the morning and highest around 7:00 in the evening therefore allowing more athletic records to be broken in the evening and Circadian Rhythms may be to blame. Shawn Youngstedt a chronobiologist of the University of South Carolina in Columbia and a student of his created an odd schedule for 25 highly trained, elite college level swimmers in which they would be in an area with dim lights and would have to remain awake and then the lights would be turned out and the swimmers would be instructed to try and sleep for an hour, this process was completed repeatedly over two days. During this experiment all of the swimmers had to complete 200 meter sprints (some sprints in the middle of the night) at least six times and all came up with the result that their fastest sprints occurred in the evening. With an average of 6 seconds faster than their morning sprints between 8-11 p.m. During the experiment diet and exposure to light were kept exactly the same for each athlete. Circadian Rhythms, higher heart rates, increased flexibility of blood vessels, an increase in blood flow which promotes more oxygen delivered  to muscles were thought to contribute to the faster results at night. Thanks to the information and theories developed from this experiment and new information on the complexity and maintenance of the circadian rhythms trainers have begun to help athletes quickly adjust to time zones while traveling for competitions. The “body’s clocklike rhythms”  have been regulating biological process from perhaps the beginning of time. For example bacteria and people as well as morning glories that open and close their petals at certain times of the day are thought to share somewhat of the same circadian rhythms. Sassone Corsi studies how circadian rhythms are related to the chemical process that maintain the life of every cell in our body or metabolism at the University of California, Irvine. He states that even though metabolism is achieved over a varied course of 24 hrs. the schedule on any given day has little difference and is thought to prove the fact that metabolism is controlled by the “internal clock”. Corsi is also fascinated that these circadian rhythms are so closely related to the earth’s rotations, everything has some kind of timepiece and is convinced that we are the way we are because of these similarities and evolution between the earth and body. In the center of the brain we will find suprachiasmatic nucleus or the internal clock that is only about the size of a grain of rice. Depending on the life form these clocks can be faster or slower therefore it must be constantly reset and what better reset mechanism than the sun. Sarah Forbes Robertson a molecular biologist that studies circadian rhythms at the Swansea University in Wales believes that if humans lived in caves their rest schedule would be completely obscure because of the lack of sunlight. When extremely light sensitive cells in the retina attract light they trigger about 20,000 neurons that communicate with the circadian rhythms and the rest of the body. These 20,000 neurons also tell the body to release hormones which in turn tells certain cells to “turn on” and tell the body to wake up go to sleep or eat.Over the years Forbes- Robertson and other scientists have discovered that the body has more than one central time piece, in fact it seems that every single cell  has an “internal clock” that combines with the master clock in the brain. The multiple clocks collaborating with the master clock may be an essential component in differing a night person from a morning person. Genes and RNA (proteins that carry out important bodily functions from instruction of the genes) may offer clues as to which muscles and/or cells have recently turned off or on as well as why one person may favor the night over day or vise versa. CLOCK genes (the ultimate mastermind behind circadian rhythms)  and Per genes (Per stands for period genes) turn off and on in specific patterns throughout the day and night. For instance Per2 communicates with circadian rhythms and makes people feel their worst at specific times in the day due to our own individual patterns from our genes.
Research proves that those who consistently disrupt their circadian rhythms have a higher risk of disease such as diabetes, insomnia, depression, cancer and obesity. Tedious actions such as working late into the night on a computer or watching TV late into the night can lead to disrupted circadian rhythms then health risks and  in the U.S. more and  more people are disrupting their circadian rhythms and developing obesity and diabetes. Sassone-Corsi and his team published a study in 2013 that stated that someday soon damaged Circadian rhythms may be repairable thanks to the possibility of turning on SERT1 that opens the possibility of controlling the CLOCK genes and preventing Diabetes.

As with any disease, prevention is much simpler than a cure therefore teens and adults should focus on not working late into the night with lights on to avoid disrupting circadian rhythms and developing dangerous health risks. Teodor Postolache teaches and studies psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of medicine in Baltimore and assists those with mood disorders such as anxiety, depression that develop these conditions because of mostly light exposure and jet lag. He advises athletes and individuals that travel frequently that have a regularly scheduled waking and sleeping time by getting a “head start” with three days of bright light exposure before travel. If an individual is trying to adapt to west coast time they should try to receive 10-15 days of full sunlight before travel to ensure safe circadian rhythms as a result of strenuous travel. A steady dietary plan can assist athletes to reject common jet lag symptoms as well as a synthetic form of the chemical melatonin which is a hormone that helps the body sleep. Recently, athletes and coaches have been communicating with Forbes-Robertson and Postolache on ways to improve ther athletes performance with more information on circadian rhythms. With real world experience on the English Rugby team these two scientists have been putting their research to work and extremely influencing the better of the sports world. Not only are these scientists thrilled about their work they are even more enthusiastic to share it with the world and look forward to the future of circadian rhythms.