In the days before alarm clocks were made, man woke up when the rooster crowed and went to bed after doing a day’s work on the farm until sunset. Those were not the days of electricity, so when daylight ended, many daytime activities also came to an end.

Since the advent of electricity, however, lifestyles have changed so drastically that we no longer wake when we hear the rooster crow but to the sound of our alarm clocks or radio clocks. And since we can’t roll out of bed the moment the alarm rings, we set the “snooze” button so that we can get a few minutes more in bed.

And since our bedrooms have heavy drapes, we can’t enjoy the first rays of the sun streaming into our rooms. And we watch late night shows on TV, don’t we? Well, that’s another reason why we can’t wake up to enjoy a sunrise.

Our chief problem lies in the fact that our systems don’t get enough rest. We aren’t like animals who sleep better in certain seasons. Animals can predict a season in advance because they sense the days shorten in the fall season and can sense the winter coming on. In spring, when the days grow longer, they know that spring and summer will soon be here.

It now comes to light that we human beings too are influenced by the light. Not only does it determine our sleep cycle but from a hormone called melatonin, we get the desire to sleep. Every evening, the pineal gland or the home of melatonin reacts to the lowering levels of daylight and begins to produce melatonin, which it releases into the blood and causes us to feel drowsy.

It reaches its peak in the middle of the night, when we are in our deepest sleep. When the morning’s sunrays shine through our eyes, the pineal gland reacts by withdrawing its production of melatonin, thus taking away our desire to sleep.

A point of interest is that the pineal gland is linked to the entire hormonal system. Therefore, the level of melatonin also influences the level of operation of other parts of the body. As a result, melatonin changes the secretion of hormones from various organs such as the pituitary, the master gland of the hormonal system at night and while we sleep.

In turn, the pituitary gland regulates the secretion of hormones that control growth, milk production, and egg and sperm production. But that’s not all. The pituitary gland also regulates the work of the thyroid gland, and the adrenal glands. Due to these fluctuations in light and darkness, and in different seasons, animals record a difference in growth and reproduction.

According to scientists, not only do we respond better to the outdoors and to seasonal changes, even children’s growth rates fluctuate depending on the seasons. Surveys conducted in Germany, Sweden and Scotland showed that one’s height and weight increase largely in spring and early summer.

Besides, many countries have reported that more couples conceive in the summer when daylight hours are longest. Other surveys and experiments conducted demonstrate that the seasons also play a role in the timing and amount we sleep, and our pain threshold, alertness and eating habits, among other things.