Most people are dimly aware of fluctua- tions in energy, mood, well-being, and performance from day to day, month to month, maybe even for longer periods. However, few people are aware that physiological rhythms are as much a part of our structure as bones and flesh, and hardly anyone attempts to live in time with these rhythms. In Body Time, Gay Gaer Luce has brought together for the general reader the reports and findings of a vast new area of scientific research which promises to have a profound im- pact on all aspects of life. The book discusses in basic terms the many aspects of human variability—in symptoms of illness, in response to med- ical treatment, in learning, and in job per- formance. Through detailed studies of such things as cell formation, fluctuations of body temperature, sleep, childbirth, and living in isolation, it is now clear that many sides of our behavior, our peaks of strength and productivity, or lows of stress and illness, are predictable and that knowledge of all these will become extremely important in planning new pre- ventive medicine and health programs. Evidence already shows that X-ray treat- ment, surgery, even psychotherapy, are influenced in their outcome by timing. Further research in physiological timing (continued on back flap) BODY TIME GAY GAER LUCE A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE - NEW YORK BODY TIME PHYSIOLOGICAL RHYTHMS AND SOCIAL STRESS fmt, PANTHEON BOOKS Copyright © 1971 by Gay Gaer Luce All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. ISBN: o—394-46891-0 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-162394 Manufactured in the United States of America by Haddon Craftsmen, Scranton, Pennsylvania 98765432 FIRST EDITION